Letters of Lydia Maria Child, with a biographical introduction by John G. Whittier and an appendix by Wendell Phillips.

176 LETTERS.
So apt to know, so wise to guide,
So tender to redress, -
0 friend, with whom such charms abide,
How can I love thee less?
E. S.
TO MRS. S. B. SHAW.
WAYLAND, July, 1863.
Oh, darling! darling! if the newspaper rumor be
true,1 what I have so long dreaded has come upon
you. But rumor very often exaggerates and sometimes invents; so I' still hope, though with a heart
that bleeds for you. If the report be true, may our
Heavenly Father sustain you under this heavy sorrow. Severe as the blow must be, it is not altogether
without consolation. If your beautiful and brave boy
has died, he died nobly in the defence of great principles, and lie has gone to join the glorious army of
martyrs; and how much more sacred and dear to
memory is such a life and such a death, than a life
spent in self-indulgence, gradually impairing the
health and weakening the mental powers. Your
darling Robert made the most of the powers and advantages God had given him by consecrating them to
the defence of freedom and humanity. Such a son
in the spirit-world is worth ten living here for themselves alone. Besides, dear, the separation is only for
a little while. You parted from him a young man,
but rendered thoughtful and anxious beyond his years
by reason of the heavy responsibilities that devolved
upon him. You will meet him a serene angel, endowed with larger vision and better understanding
why it is that we are doomed to suffer here. Ah,
darling, my words fall coldly upon your bereaved
1 Report. of the death of Colonel Robert G. Shaw.