turned from me, or if I had turned away my eyes from Him, I should now
find myself very unfortunate and wretched; but by His grace, on the
contrary, lowly and weak creature as I am, He makes me strong and
powerful against whatever can befall me.

"What I have hitherto revered as sacred, what I have desired as good what
I have aspired to as heavenly, has in no respect changed now. And I thank
God for it, for I should now be in great despair if I were compelled to
recognise that my heart had adored deceptive images and enwrapped itself
in fugitive chimeras. Thus my faith in these ideas and my pure love far
them, guardian angels of my spirit as they are, increase moment by
moment, and will go on increasing to my end, and I hope that I may pass
all the more easily from this world into eternity. I pass my silent life
in Christian exaltation and humility, and I sometimes have those visions
from above through which I have, from my birth, adored heaven upon earth,
and which give me power to raise myself to the Lord upon the eager wings
of my prayers. My illness, though long, painful, and cruel, has always
been sufficiently mastered by my will to let me busy myself to some
result with history, positive sciences, and the finer parts of religious
education, and when my suffering became more violent and for a time
interrupted these occupations, I struggled successfully, nevertheless,
against ennui; for the memories of the past, my resignation to the
present, and my faith in the future were rich enough and strong enough in
me and round me to prevent my falling from my terrestrial paradise.
According to my principles, I would never, in the position in which I am
and in which I have placed myself, have been willing to ask anything for
my own comfort; but so much kindness and care have been lavished upon me,
with so much delicacy and humanity,--which alas! I am unable to
return--by every person with whom I have been brought into contact, that
wishes which I should not have dared to frame in the mast private