You have no need now of any cold lecture to teach
thankfulness : your heart is full of it. No need now,
as once, of bursting blossoms, of trees taking leaf, and
greenness, to turn thought kindly, and thankfully ;
for ever, beside you, there is bloom, and ever beside



34 Reveries of a Bachelor

you there is fruit, — for which eye, heart, and soul are
full of unknown, and unspoken, because unspeakable,
thank-offering.
And if sickness catches you, binds you, lays you
down — no lonely moanings, and wicked curses at
careless stepping nurses. Tht step is noiseless, and
yet distinct beside you. The white curtains are
drawn, or withdrawn by the magic of that other pres-
ence } and the soft, cool hand is upon your brow.
No cold comfortings of friend- watchers, merely
come in to steal a word away from that outer world
which is pulling at their sku-ts ; but, ever, the sad,
shaded brow of her, whose lightest sorrow for your
sake is your greatest grief,— if it were not a greater

joy-

The blaze was leaping light and high, and the wood
falling under the growing heat.
So, continued I, this heart would be at length

itself ;— striving with every thing gross, even now as
it clings to grossness. Love would make its strength
native and progressive. Earth's cares would fly.
Joys would double. Susceptibilities be quickened j
Love master self; and having made the mastery,
stretch onward, and upward toward Infinitude.
