Page:Father's memoirs of his child.djvu/28

 at once what I had left; how unavailing the lengthened and excessive indulgence of grief would have been to myself, and how useless it would have rendered me to others. Why should I have locked my breast against the return of its accustomed tranquillity, when so many others wisely reconcile themselves to breaches of domestic union, irreparable in kind as well as in degree? Have you never been threatened with a calamity, which, had it befallen you in your only hope, would have pressed more heavily than even mine on me? Yet you would have triumphed, though after many and painful efforts, over the tyranny of despair. When the first agonies of childless destitution had subsided into melancholy, but resigned and contemplative thought, you would have reflected that these are the trials, which constitute the tenure of human life, even on its brightest and most attractive side. Your groves would indeed have lost their music to your ears, and their enchantment to your eyes. The rush of your