Weekly Trinity Journal

Reminiscence of an Old Woman,
I am an old woman, now, and looking back through the deserted avenues of years, all seems dreamy. Only one spot on memory's dust-covered tablet is clear; it is the era of my first great sorrow. All else seen through the gloomy mist is hazy and changeful; but that one spot is fixed and always visible. It may be that intense agony of soul endured then, blunted my feelings for all other afflictions, past or to come.
When I saw a loved companion, white, cold and rigid before me; when for the first time the eye gave no response to mine; when the pressure of the hand was unreturned, when the voice that subdued my stubborn will by one low, kind word, was dead on the stiffened tongue; when the lips that never refused me kiss for kiss, were cold and motionless, then I realized that I was alone in the world, then the certainty of desolation fell upon me. It swept over my heart like a desolating sirocco, where a few weeks before all was fresh, green and fragrant. Silent, lifeless and isolated I became; I had but one intense desire—to reach the end of life. The world was a desert—a dreamy, measureless desert; no green spot, no cooling spring to rest the soul or quench the heart-thirst. I longed for death; life seemed only beyond the limits of the tomb to which I followed my companion, the first of a long train of mourners. I heard the clay rattling on the coffin-lid, and shuddered, but did not weep; I turned away, heart-sick and hating the man who was covering up the form of one so dear to me. I think reason trembled on its throne, yet stood. Bitter thoughts were in my heart; I hated all the world, and trusted none. My heart grew cold and stern, but I never betrayed to the world the inward storms that shook my soul, until it reeled and reeled, but fell not. They wondered at my coldness: they called me unfeeling and heartless, but I was not; and oh, how keenly I felt the supreme of human agony! It pleased me to revel in the desolated past. My dead companion was ever before me; I believed him ever present when compelled to mingle with the gay and happy; but, when alone, all the agony of a sensitive, bereaved heart came upon me.
But that was long ago, and now all is subdued to a quiet, earnest longing for rest and companionship beyond the grave. More than three score winters have bleached my hair: their winds have shrivelled my face, and their hard blasts have bent the form which they used to say was stately and beautiful. Age presses his icy fingers upon my brow; each year Time, with his iron graver, digs new furrows, and the eye, once so bright and sparkling, is dim and filmy with watching for the messenger who will unlock the chambers of rest.
CONSTANCE.