'My earliest recollection is of a death,--the death of a
sister, two years younger than myself. Probably there is a
sense of childish endearments, such as belong to this tie,
mingled with that of loss, of wonder, and mystery; but these
last are prominent in memory. I remember coming home and
meeting our nursery-maid, her face streaming with tears. That
strange sight of tears made an indelible impression. I realize
how little I was of stature, in that I looked up to this
weeping face;--and it has often seemed since, that--full-grown
for the life of this earth, I have looked up just so, at times
of threatening, of doubt, and distress, and that just so has
some being of the next higher order of existences looked down,
aware of a law unknown to me, and tenderly commiserating the
pain I muse endure in emerging from my ignorance.
'She took me by the hand and led me into a still and dark
chamber,--then drew aside the curtain and showed me my sister.
I see yet that beauty of death! The highest achievements of
sculpture are only the reminder of its severe sweetness. Then
I remember the house all still and dark,--the people in their
black clothes and dreary faces,--the scent of the newly-made
coffin,--my being set up in a chair and detained by a gentle
hand to hear the clergyman,--the carriages slowly going, the
procession slowly doling out their steps to the grave. But
I have no remembrance of what I have since been told I
did,--insisting, with loud cries, that they should not put the
body in the ground. I suppose that my emotion was spent at
the time, and so there was nothing to fix that moment in my
memory.
'I did not then, nor do I now, find any beauty in these
ceremonies. What had they to do with the sweet playful child?
Her life and death were alike beautiful, but all this sad
parade was not. Thus my first experience of life was one of
death. She who would have been the companion of my life was
severed from me, and I was left alone. This has made a
vast difference in my lot. Her character, if that fair face
promised right, would have been soft, graceful and lively: it
would have tempered mine to a gentler and more gradual course.