Page:Some unpublished letters of Henry D. and Sophia E. Thoreau; a chapter in the history of a still-born book.djvu/98

 ''My mother and myself are the only surviving members of a family once numbering six. My elder brother, for whom you enquire, died twenty years ago, next a precious sister was called, and three years since my dear Father left us.''

''My brother Henry's illness commenced a year ago last December. During seventeen months never a murmur escaped him. I wish that I could describe the wonderful simplicity and child-like trust with which he accepted every experience. As he said, "he never met with a disappointment in his life, because he always arranged so as to avoid it." "He learned when he was a very little boy that he must die, and of course he was not disappointed when his time came." Indeed we cannot''