CHAPTER IV

JOANNA’S CARE

60. THE mischances which have delayed the sequence of Præterita¹ must modify somewhat also its intended order. I leave Rosie’s letter to tell what it can of the beginning of happiest days; but omit, for a little while, the further record of them,-of the shadows which gathered around them, and increased, in my father’s illness; and of the lightning which struck him down in death²-so sudden, that I find it extremely difficult, in looking back, to realize the state of mind in which it left either my mother or me. My own principal feeling was certainly anxiety for her, who had been for so many years in every thought dependent on my father’s wishes, and withdrawn from all other social pleasure as long as she could be his companion. I scarcely felt the power I had over her, myself; and was at first amazed to find my own life suddenly becoming to her another ideal; and that new hope and pride were possible to her, in seeing me take command of my father’s fortune, and permitted by him, from his grave, to carry out the theories I had formed for my political work, with unrestricted and deliberate energy.

My mother’s perfect health of mind, and vital religious faith, enabled her to take all the good that was left to her, in the world, while she looked in secure patience for the heavenly future: but there was immediate need for

¹ [Between chapters i. and ii. of vol. iii. there had been an interval of four months, and between chapters ii. and iii. another of nine months, owing to the author’s ill-health.]

² [He died, very suddenly at the end, on March 3, 1864: see Vol. XVII. p. lxxvii.]

535

[Version 0.04: March 2008]