[FROM A LETTER TO A FRIEND]
There was a time, in my life of girlhood, when I thought I had been
called upon to bear the very hardest thing that can come to a Woman.
A very short time served to show me, in the harder battle of life
Which was before me, that this had been but a spring storm, which was
simply to help me to a clearer, better, richer, and more productive
summer. If I had been spared this early trial, I should never have
been so earnest and faithful in my art; I should have still been
casting about for the "counterpart," and not given my entire self to
my work, wherein and alone I have reached any excellence I have ever
attained, and through which alone I have received my reward. God
helped me in my art isolation, and rewarded me for recognising him and
helping myself. This passed on; and this happened at a period in my
life when most women (or children, rather) are looking to but one end
in life--an end no doubt wisest and best for the largest number, but
which would not have been wisest and best for my work, and so for
God's work, for I know he does not fail to set me his work to do, and
helps me to do it, and helps others to help me. (Do you see this
tracing back, and then forward, to an eternity of good, and do you see
how better and better one can become in recognising one's self as a
minister of the Almighty to faithfully carry out our part of His great
plan according to our strength and ability?) 0 believe we cannot live
one moment for ourselves, one moment of selfish repining, and not be
failing him at that moment, hiding the God-spark in us, letting the
flesh conquer the spirit, the evil dominate the good.
Then after this first spring storm and hurricane of young
disappointment came a lull--during which I actively pursued what
became a passion,--my art. Then I lost my younger brother, upon whom
I had begun to build most hopefully, as I had reason. He was by far
the cleverest of my mother's children. He had been born into greater
poverty than the others; he received his young impressions through a
different atmosphere; he was keener, more artistic, more impulsive,
more generous, more full of genius. I lost him by a cruel accident,
and again the world seem to liquefy beneath my feet, and the waters
went over my soul. It became necessary that I should suffer bodily to
cure my heart-bleed. I placed myself professionally where I found and
knew all my mortifications in my profession, which seemed for the time
to strew ashes over the loss of my child-brother (for he was my child,
and loved me best in all the world), thus conquering my art, which,
God knows, has never failed me--never failed to bring me rich
reward--never failed to bring me comfort. I conquered my grief and
myself. Labour saved me then and always, and so I proved the eternal
goodness of God. I digress too much; but you will see how, in looking
back to my own early disappointments, I can recognise all the good
which came out of them, and can ask you to lay away all repinings with
our darling, and hope (as we must) in God's wisdom and goodness, and
ask him to help us to a clearer vision and truer knowledge of his
dealings with us; to teach us to believe that we are lifted up to him
better through our losses than our gains. May it not be that heaven
is nearer, the passage from earth less hard, and life less seductive
to us, in consequence of the painless passing of this cherub to its
true home, lent us but for a moment, to show how pure must be our
lives to fit us for such companionship? And thus, although in one
sense it would be well for us to put away the sadness of this thought
if it would be likely to enervate us, in another sense, if we consider
it rightly, if we look upon it worthily, we have an angel in God's
house to help us to higher and purer thinkings, to nobler aspirations,
to more sublime sacrifices than we have ever known before.