She did not know what to do with her
sense of misery, her hopeless yearning, with the sudden
darkness which had fallen upon her bright life, and where she
was left to grope without one hand stretched out by which she
could reach back as it were, into the past, and grasp some
familiar reality that should help her to a comprehension of
this strange new world in which she found herself. We hear
often enough of the short life of childish troubles, quickly
excited, and as quickly forgotten--true enough perhaps of the
griefs isolated, so to speak, in the midst of long days of
happiness. But the grief that is not isolated? The grief over
which the child cries itself to sleep every night, and which
wakes with it in the morning, saddening and darkening with its
own gloom the day which ought to be so joyous? In such a grief
as this, there is, perhaps, for the time it lasts, no sorrow
so sad, so acute, so hopeless, as a child's. For us, who with
our wide experience have lived through so much, and must
expect to live through so much more, a strength has risen up
out of our very extremity, as we have learnt to believe in a
beyond, in a future that must succeed the darkest hour.
Pages:
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280