Maternal Love.
The recollection of a Mother.
It is ever thus, whenever I am unhappy I bring distant and impossible events together, I turn to the thought of you, my Mother, for comfort, and I feel that you are not, that on earth you can never be again, that all my grief, and all my love, multiplied a thousand fold, could not recall you for one little hour; and I wish again for you, my blessed Mother, as though but just snatched from me. Time, they say, lessens grief. Yes, its constancy, not its intensity; it may give us even long intervals of peace and happiness, but when grief does return, it is strong and keen and deep as ever. How indeed can regret for such a loss be lessened? Can the thought of a Mother’s love, such a love as mine bore me, ever lose its charm, its influence? Not, I am sure, even when the reality is lost; what it was to me, so it is. Perishable things alone lose their value. Time withers flowers, but does not dim the diamond; and shall love for the being who gave us birth, the only real emanation of the Deity, that burns within us, perish as a passion of the earth? Can what is ethereal change its nature, as grosser substances? the eternal become mortal, the infinite be bounded, and what is born of the soul know death? Never!