h are always happening and
being misunderstood."

The homeward voyage and its sorrowful conclusion are pathetically
conveyed in his notes:

June 29, 1904. Sailed last night at 10. The bugle-call to
breakfast. I recognized the notes and was distressed. When I heard
them last Livy heard them with me; now they fall upon her ear
unheeded.

In my life there have been 68 Junes--but how vague & colorless 67 of
them are contrasted with the deep blackness of this one!

July 1, 1904. I cannot reproduce Livy's face in my mind's eye--I
was never in my life able to reproduce a face. It is a curious
infirmity--& now at last I realize it is a calamity.

July 2, 1904. In these 34 years we have made many voyages together,
Livy dear--& now we are making our last; you down below & lonely; I
above with the crowd & lonely.

July 3, 1904. Ship-time, 8 A.M. In 13 hours & a quarter it will be
4 weeks since Livy died.

Thirty-one years ago we made our first voyage together--& this is
our last one in company. Susy was a year old then. She died at 24
& had been in her grave 8 years.

July 10, 1904. To-night it will be 5 weeks. But to me it remains
yesterday--as it has from the first. But this funeral march--how
sad & long it is!

Two days more will end the second stage of it.

July 14, 1904 (ELMIRA). Funeral private in the house of Livy's
young maidenhood. Where she stood as a bride 34 years ago there her
coffin rested; & over it the same voice that had made her a wife
then committed her departed spirit to God now.

It was Joseph Twichell who rendered that last service. Mr. Beecher was
long since dead. It was a simple, touching utterance, closing with this
tender word of farewell:

Robert Browning, when he was nearing the end of his earthly days,
said that death was the thing that we did not believe in. Nor do we
believe in it. We who journeyed through the bygone years in
companionship with the bright spirit now withdrawn are growing old.
The way behind is long; the way before is short. The end cannot be
far off. But what of that? Can we not say, each one:

"So long that power hath blessed me, sure it still
Will lead me on;
O'er moor and fen; o'er crag and torrent, till
The night is gone;
And with the morn, their angel faces smile,
Which