Acute pain racks him; his writhing limbs know not where to find rest; he leans on Hope's anchors.

Death takes from him what he loves; roots up, and tears violently away the stem round which his affections were twined--a dark, dismal time, a frightful wrench--but some morning Religion looks into his desolate house with sunrise, and says, that in another world, another life, he shall meet his kindred again.

She speaks of that world as a place unsullied by sin--of that life, as an era unembittered by suffering; she mightily strengthens her consolation by connecting with it two ideas--which mortals cannot comprehend, but on which they love to repose--Eternity, Immortality; and the mind of the mourner, being filled with an image, faint yet glorious, of heavenly hills all light and peace--of a spirit resting there in bliss--of a day when his spirit shall also alight there, free and disembodied--of a reunion perfected by love, purified from fear--he takes courage--goes out to encounter the necessities and discharge the duties of life; and, though sadness may never lift her burden from his mind, Hope will enable him to support it.
Well--and what suggested all this?
and what is the inference to be drawn therefrom?
What suggested it, is the circumstance of my best pupil--my treasure--being snatched from my hands, and put away out of my reach; the inference to be drawn from it is--that, being a steady, reasonable man, I did not allow the resentment, disappointment, and grief, engendered in my mind by this evil chance, to grow there to any monstrous size; nor did I allow them to monopolize the whole space of my heart; I pent them, on the contrary, in one strait and secret nook.

In the daytime, too, when I was about my duties, I put them on the silent system; and it was only after I had closed the door of my chamber at night that I somewhat relaxed my severity towards these morose nurslings, and allowed vent to their language of murmurs; then, in revenge, they sat on my pillow, haunted my bed, and kept me awake with their long, midnight cry.
A week passed.

I had said nothing more to Mdlle.Reuter.I had been calm in my demeanour to her, though stony cold and hard.