[The Complete Works of Whittier by John Greenleaf Whittier]@TWC D-Link bookThe Complete Works of Whittier INTRODUCTION 375/376
She had, she said, felt unwilling to accept his offer of a passage home, holding herself unworthy of such civilities at his hands; but he had so pressed the matter that she had, not without some misgivings, consented to it. "But it was not according to the inscrutable wisdom of Providence that she should ever be restored to her father's house.
Among the victims of the great earthquake which destroyed Port Royal a few days after the date of her letter, was this unfortunate lady.
It was a heavy blow to my grandmother, who entertained for her cousin the tenderest affection, and, indeed, she seems to have been every way worthy of it,--lovely in person, amiable in deportment, and of a generous and noble nature.
She was, especially after her great trouble, of a somewhat pensive and serious habit of mind, contrasting with the playfulness and innocent light-heartedness of her early life, as depicted in the diary of my grandmother, yet she was ever ready to forget herself in ministering to the happiness and pleasures of others.
She was not, as I learn, a member of the church, having some scruples in respect to the rituals, as was natural from her education in New England, among Puritanic schismatics; but she lived a devout life, and her quiet and unostentatious piety exemplified the truth of the language of one of the greatest of our divines, the Bishop of Down and Connor 'Prayer is the peace of our spirit, the stillness of our thoughts, the issue of a quiet mind, the daughter of charity, and the sister of meekness.' Optimus animus est pulcherrimus Dei cultus. "R.
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