If he be anything of a philosopher, he may reason that this trait must
have made his mother too serious and too hard. Let him think again.
It was the very core of soundness in her that kept her gay and sweet.
I have often likened her mind to the sky in its power of changeableness
from radiant joyousness to sober calm; but oftenest it was like the
vault of April, whose drops quicken what they fall upon; and she was of
a soft-heartedness that ruled her absolutely--but only to the
unyielding edge of honor. Yet she did not escape this charge of being
both hard and serious upon the part of men and women who were used to
the laxness of small misdemeanors, and felt ill at ease before the
terrifying truth that she was a lady.

Beyond this single trait of hers--which, if it please God that he
inherit it, may he keep though he lose everything else--I set nothing
further down for his remembrance, since naught could come of my
writing. By words I could no more give him an idea of what his mother
was than I could point him to a few measures of wheat and bid him
behold a living harvest.


Upon these fields of cool October greenness there risen out of the
earth a low, sturdy weed. Upon the top of this weed small white
blossoms open as still as stars of frost. Upon these blossoms lies a
fragrance so pure and wholesome that the searching sense is never
cloyed, never satisfied. Years after the blossoms are dried and yellow
and the leaves withered and gone, this wholesome fragrance lasts. The
common people, who often put their hopes into their names, call it
life-everlasting. Sometimes they make themselves pillows of it for its
virtue of bringing a quiet sleep.