Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume One).djvu/44

 me, that excess at the funeral-feast has remained to the present hour my only one. Of intellectual stimulus our village did not offer much, except that which I found within our home walls and in the larger family circle. My mother's opportunities for cultivation had never extended beyond the parish school and intercourse with relatives and friends. But she was a woman of excellent mental qualities—in a high degree sensible, of easy and clear perception and discernment, and apt to take a lively interest in everything deserving it. But the chief strength of her character lay in her moral nature. I know no virtue that my mother did not possess. Nothing, however, could have been farther from her than assumption of superiority, for she was almost too modest and self-effacing. Rectitude, which is as it is because it cannot be otherwise, was in her joined to the gentlest judgment of others. Her disinterestedness in every trial proved itself capable of truly heroic self-sacrifice. The sorrows of those around her she felt more deeply than her own, and her constant care was for the happiness of those she loved. No misfortune could break her courage, and the calm cheerfulness of her pure soul survived the cruelest blows of fortune. When she died, nearly eighty years old, she had even in the last moments of consciousness a bright smile for the children and grandchildren standing at her bedside. Her figure was slender and well-formed and her features somewhat resembled those of our grandfather. We children always admired her curly golden-brown hair. Whether in the blossom-time of her life she would have been called beautiful or not we never knew; but her countenance was to us all love and goodness and sunshine. The customs and forms of the great world were of course unknown to her, but she possessed the rare grace of noble naturalness which goes far to supply a deficiency in social training. Her handwriting