finally brought comfort to his heart.

When the service was ended, and the servants were withdrawn, he
tenderly kissed Emily, and said, 'I have endeavoured to teach you,
from your earliest youth, the duty of self-command; I have pointed
out to you the great importance of it through life, not only as it
preserves us in the various and dangerous temptations that call us
from rectitude and virtue, but as it limits the indulgences which are
termed virtuous, yet which, extended beyond a certain boundary, are
vicious, for their consequence is evil. All excess is vicious; even
that sorrow, which is amiable in its origin, becomes a selfish and
unjust passion, if indulged at the expence of our duties--by our
duties I mean what we owe to ourselves, as well as to others. The
indulgence of excessive grief enervates the mind, and almost
incapacitates it for again partaking of those various innocent
enjoyments which a benevolent God designed to be the sun-shine of our
lives. My dear Emily, recollect and practise the precepts I have so
often given you, and which your own experience has so often shewn you
to be wise.

'Your sorrow is useless. Do not receive this as merely a commonplace
remark, but let reason THEREFORE restrain sorrow. I would not
annihilate your feelings, my child, I would only teach you to command
them; for whatever may be the evils resulting from a too susceptible
heart, nothing can be hoped from an insensible one; that, on the
other hand, is all vice--vice, of which the deformity is not
softened, or the effect consoled for, by any semblance or possibility
of good. You know my sufferings, and are, therefore, convinced that
mine are not the light words which, on these occasions, are so often
repeated to destroy even the sources of honest emotion, or which