ere
compelled to recognise that my heart had adored deceptive images and
enwrapped itself in fugitive chimeras. Thus my faith in these ideas
and my pure love far them, guardian angels of my spirit as they are,
increase moment by moment, and will go on increasing to my end, and I
hope that I may pass all the more easily from this world into eternity.
I pass my silent life in Christian exaltation and humility, and I
sometimes have those visions from above through which I have, from my
birth, adored heaven upon earth, and which give me power to raise myself
to the Lord upon the eager wings of my prayers. My illness, though long,
painful, and cruel, has always been sufficiently mastered by my will to
let me busy myself to some result with history, positive sciences, and
the finer parts of religious education, and when my suffering became
more violent and for a time interrupted these occupations, I struggled
successfully, nevertheless, against ennui; for the memories of the past,
my resignation to the present, and my faith in the future were rich
enough and strong enough in me and round me to prevent my falling from
my terrestrial paradise. According to my principles, I would never, in
the position in which I am and in which I have placed myself, have been
willing to ask anything for my own comfort; but so much kindness
and care have been lavished upon me, with so much delicacy and
humanity,--which alas! I am unable to return--by every person with whom
I have been brought into contact, that wishes which I should not have
dared to frame in the mast private recesses of my heart have been more
than exceeded. I have never been so much overcome by bodily pains that I
could not say within myself, while I lifted my thoughts to heaven, 'Come
what may of this ray.' And great as these gains have been, I could not
dream of comparing them with those sufferings of the soul that we feel
so profoundly and poignantly in the recognition of our weaknesses and
faults.

"Moreover, these pains seldom now cause me to lose consciousness; the
swelling and inflammation never made great headway, and the fever has
always been moderate, though for nearly ten months I have been forced to
remain lying on my back, unable to raise myself, and although more than
forty pints of matter have come from my chest at the place where the
heart is. No, an the contrary, the wound, though still open, is in a
good state; and I owe that not only to the excellent nursing