Page:Sketch of Connecticut, Forty Years Since.djvu/254

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
242
SKETCH OF CONNECTICUT,

with Oriana, his spiritual consolations were ever mingled with solicitude for her earthly comfort. His wife, to whom he had communicated what he knew of the interesting invalid, continually sent by him cordials, and little delicacies, which it was her pleasure to prepare for the sick. His little children, moved by kindness at once hereditary, and impressed by education, would add, what she always received with peculiar gratitude, a bouquet of the flowers, which their own hands had cultivated. He had occasionally proposed to Oriana a removal to his residence, hoping that a change of habitation might be beneficial to her health. But the idea was painful to her. She could not think of parting from those, who had cherished her with such undivided tenderness, and whose happiness had become interwoven with her presence. Thanking him for his fatherly solicitude, she would say—

"The pomp and circumstance of life, to one about to leave it, reveal their own emptiness. To have our necessities ministered unto by hands which are never weary, our pains mitigated by hearts which are never cold, is all which a disease fatal like mine can ask. Fear not that I am entirely burdensome to their poverty. My small stock is not yet expended, nor will it be until my animal wants are at an end. Yet more than the perishable part is provided for. Your prayers, your instructions, Father, strengthen my soul for her approaching flight. More than contented, grateful, and happy, she waiteth till her change come. Sometimes, while I lie sleepless, yet composed,