"
* * * * *
TO MR. AND MRS. SPRING.
_Florence, Dec._ 12, 1840.
DEAR M. AND R.: * * * Your letter, dear R, was written in your noblest
and most womanly spirit. I thank you warmly for your sympathy about my
little boy. What he is to me, even you can hardly dream; you that have
three, in whom the natural thirst of the heart was earlier satisfied,
can scarcely know what my one ewe-lamb is to me. That he may live,
that I may find bread for him, that I may not spoil him by overweening
love, that I may grow daily better for his sake, are the
ever-recurring thoughts,--say prayers,--that give their hue to all the
current of my life.
But, in answer to what you say, that it is still better to give the
world a living soul than a portion of my life in a printed book, it is
true; and yet, of my book I could know whether it would be of some
worth or not; of my child, I must wait to see what his worth will be.
I play with him, my ever-growing mystery! but from the solemnity of
the thoughts he brings is refuge only in God. Was I worthy to be
parent of a soul, with its eternal, immense capacity for weal and woe?
"God be merciful to me a sinner!" comes so naturally to a mother's
heart!
* * * * *
What you say about the Peace way is deeply true; if any one see
clearly how to work in that way, let him, in God's name! Only, if he
abstain from fighting against giant wrongs, let him be sure he is
really and ardently at work undermining them, or, better still,
sustaining the rights that are to supplant them.
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