'
TO W. S. WILLIAMS
'_December_ 25_th_, 1848.
'MY DEAR SIR,--I will write to you more at length when my heart can
find a little rest--now I can only thank you very briefly for your
letter, which seemed to me eloquent in its sincerity.
'Emily is nowhere here now, her wasted mortal remains are taken out
of the house. We have laid her cherished head under the church aisle
beside my mother's, my two sisters'--dead long ago--and my poor,
hapless brother's. But a small remnant of the race is left--so my
poor father thinks.
'Well, the loss is ours, not hers, and some sad comfort I take, as I
hear the wind blow and feel the cutting keenness of the frost, in
knowing that the elements bring her no more suffering; their severity
cannot reach her grave; her fever is quieted, her restlessness
soothed, her deep, hollow cough is hushed for ever; we do not hear it
in the night nor listen for it in the morning; we have not the
conflict of the strangely strong spirit and the fragile frame before
us--relentless conflict--once seen, never to be forgotten. A dreary
calm reigns round us, in the midst of which we seek resignation.
'My father and my sister Anne are far from well.
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