1856,
Air, 52.

h46

LIFE OF COBDEN. [oma®

wildered by the eternal perplexities of raconciling untimely
death with the common morality of things. God!” be
exclaims, repeating a commonplace of the grave, so old and
well-worn, yet ever frosh in its pathos, “ what a mystery of
mysteries is this life— that one so young and bright, around
whom our hopes and dresms had been twining themselves
for fifteen years, should be in a fow hours struck down and
withered like a weed!” His was not a soul to loge itself 0
brooding over the black enigma. There is not a word of
rebellion. He accepts the affliction as a decree of the
inscrutable Power, and his quiet and humble patience
touches us the more, because we discern the profound
suffering beneath it. His anguish at the blighting of
his own love and hope, was made keener by the strang®
torpor which now and for long afflicted his wife. His ten:
derness and devotion to her in the midst of all this agony;
were unremitting and inexhaustible. Six weeks after the
fatal news had come, he was able to write to his brother-iz~
law :—“T have not been out of her sight for an hour at 8
time (except at the funeral) since we learnt our bereavement;
 and I do not believe she would have been alive and it
her senses now, if I had not been able to lessen her grief by
sharing it.” And this urgent demand upon his sympathies
and attention continued beyond weeks, into months.
“ My poor wife,” Lo writes to a friend, “ makes but slow
progress in the recovery of her health, She is on the lawn
or in the field all day with a little spade in hand, digging
up the weeds; it is the only muscular effort she can makes
and it unfortunately leaves her mind free to brood over the
one absorbing subject. The open air must in time give her
strength, but as yet she has not been able to pass a night
without the aid of opiates. Her friends must have pity and
forget her for a time. She is not a heroine; but hers is #
Y To Joseph Parkes, Hay 23, 1658,