Towards the last an unacknowledged fear took hold of my mother's
consciousness, so that she gave every evidence of foretelling my
father's death without once presenting the possibility to herself.
This little note of mine, dated April 4, 1864, six weeks before he
died, shows the truth:--
"I am so glad that you are getting on so well; but for your own sake I
think you had better stay somewhere till you get entirely well. Mamma
thought from the last letter from Mr. Ticknor that you were not so
well; but Julian explained to her that, as Mr. Ticknor said in every
line that you were better, he did not see how it could possibly be. I
do not either."
From the first year of our return to America letters and visitors from
abroad had interrupted the sense of utter quiet; and many friends
called in amiable pilgrimage. But a week of monotony is immensely
long, and a few hours of zest are provokingly short. Nature and
seclusion are welcome when, at our option, we can bid them good-by.
All England is refreshing with the nearness of London. In the rush of
cares and interruptions which we suppose will kill the opportunity,
while we half lose ourselves and our intellectual threads of
speculation, the flowers of inspiration suddenly blow, the gems flash
color. This is a pleasant, but not always an essential satisfaction;
yet, in my father's case, I think his life suffered with peculiar
severity from the sudden clashing aside of manly interests which he
had already denied to himself, or which circumstances had denied to
him, with the utmost persistence ever known in so perceptive a genius.
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