I asked for him just before the midsummer holidays, and with great
difficulty obtained an invitation for him to spend them with her. She
resisted my entreaties stoutly, but at last was obliged to yield; not
to me, nor to my powers of persuasion, but to the holy truth of which
I was then the advocate. The child came, and I was there also to
receive him, and to enforce by my presence--which I saw without vanity
had great influence--a fitting reception. He was a pensive, clever,
interesting little fellow; sensitive and affectionate, timid, gifted
with wonderful powers, and of great beauty. There was a shy look in
his eyes, which made me sure that he inherited much of his loveliness
from his mother; and when we were great friends, he shewed me a small
portrait of 'poor mamma;' and I saw at once the most striking likeness
between the two. No human heart could withstand that boy, certainly
not my poor friend's. She yielded, fighting desperately against me and
him, and all the powers of love, which were subduing her, but yielding
while she fought; and in a short time the child had taken his proper
place in her affections, which he kept to the end of her life. And
she, that desolate mother, even she, with her seared soul and
petrified heart, was brought to the knowledge of peace by the glorious
power of love.

Prosperous, famous, happy, blessed in home and hearth, this has become
my fundamental creed of life, the basis on which all good, whether of
art or of morality, is rested: of art especially; for only by a
tender, reverent spirit can the true meaning of his vocation be made
known to the artist. All the rest is mere imitation of form, not
insight into essence. And while I feel that I can live out of myself,
and love others--the whole world of man--more than myself, I know that
I possess the secret of happiness; ay, though my powers were suddenly
blasted as by lightning, my wife and children laid in the cold grave,