calm and serene; far, very, very far, from an indecent, forgetful
serenity. She has a most affectionate and tender concern for what has
happened. Indeed, from the beginning, frightful and hopeless as her
disorder seemed, I had confidence enough in her strength of mind and
religious principle to look forward to a time when _even she_ might
recover tranquillity. God be praised, Coleridge, wonderful as it is to
tell, I have never once been otherwise than collected and calm; even on
the dreadful day and in the midst of the terrible scene, I preserved a
tranquillity which bystanders may have construed into indifference,--a
tranquillity not of despair. Is it folly or sin in me to say that it was
a religious principle that _most_ supported me? I allow much to other
favorable circumstances. I felt that I had something else to do than to
regret. On that first evening my aunt was lying insensible, to all
appearance like one dying; my father with his poor forehead plastered
over, from a wound he had received from a daughter dearly loved by him,
and who loved him no less dearly; my mother a dead and murdered corpse
in the next room,--yet was I wonderfully supported, I dosed not my eyes
in sleep that night, but lay without terrors and without despair, I have
lost no sleep since, I had been long used not to rest in things of
sense,--had endeavored after a comprehension of mind unsatisfied with
the "ignorant present time;" and _this_ kept me up. I had the whole
weight of the family thrown on me; for my brother, [1] little disposed (I
speak not without tenderness for him) at any time to take care of old
age and infirmities, had now, with his bad leg, an exemption from such
duties; and I was now left alone.

One little incident may serve to make you understand my way of managing
my mind, Within a day or two after the fatal one, we dressed for dinner
a tongue which we had had salted for some weeks in the house. As I sat
down, a feeling like remorse struck me: this tongue poor Mary got for