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Life of John Sterling-Part36_Thomas Carlyle(1795-1881)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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"It would be a very great happiness to see you once more even here;

but I do not know if that will be granted to me. But for Susan's



state, I should not hesitate an instant; as it is, my duty seems to be

to remain, and I have no right to repine. There is no sacrifice that



she would not make for me, and it would be too cruel to endanger her

by mere anxiety on my account. Nothing can exceed her sympathy with



my sorrow. But she cannot know, no one can, the recollections of all

you have been and done for me; which now are the most sacred and



deepest, as well as most beautiful, thoughts that abide with me. May

God bless you, dearest Mother. It is much to believe that He feels



for you all that you have ever felt for your children.

"JOHN STERLING."



A day or two after this, "on Good Friday, 1843," his Wife got happily

through her confinement, bringing him, he writes, "a stout little



girl, who and the Mother are doing as well as possible." The little

girl still lives and does well; but for the Mother there was another



lot. Till the Monday following she too did altogether well, he

affectionately watching her; but in the course of that day, some



change for the worse was noticed, though nothing to alarm either the

doctors or him; he watched by her bedside all night, still without



alarm; but sent again in the morning, Tuesday morning, for the

doctors,--Who did not seem able to make much of the symptoms. She



appeared weak and low, but made no particular complaint. The London

post meanwhile was announced; Sterling went into another room to learn



what tidings of his Mother it brought him. Returning speedily with a

face which in vain strove to be calm, his Wife asked, How at



Knightsbridge? "My Mother is dead," answered Sterling; "died on

Sunday: She is gone." "Poor old man! " murmured the other, thinking



of old Edward Sterling now left alone in the world; and these were her

own last words: in two hours more she too was dead. In two hours



Mother and Wife were suddenly both snatched away from him.

"It came with awful suddenness! " writes he to his Clifton friend.



"Still for a short time I had my Susan: but I soon saw that the

medical men were in terror; and almost within half an hour of that



fatal Knightsbridge news, I began to suspect our own pressing danger.

I received her last breath upon my lips. Her mind was much sunk, and



her perceptions slow; but a few minutes before the last, she must have

caught the idea of dissolution; and signed that I should kiss her.



She faltered painfully, 'Yes! yes!'--returned with fervency the

pressure of my lips; and in a few moments her eyes began to fix, her



pulse to cease. She too is gone from me!" It was Tuesday morning,

April 18th, 1843. His Mother had died on the Sunday before.



He had loved his excellent kind Mother, as he ought and well might:

in that good heart, in all the wanderings of his own, there had ever



been a shrine of warm pity, of mother's love and blessed soft

affections for him; and now it was closed in the Eternities



forevermore. His poor Life-partner too, his other self, who had

faithfully attended him so long in all his pilgrimings, cheerily



footing the heavy tortuous ways along with him, can follow him no

farther; sinks now at his side: "The rest of your pilgrimings alone,



O Friend,--adieu, adieu!" She too is forever hidden from his eyes;

and he stands, on the sudden, very solitary amid the tumult of fallen



and falling things. "My little baby girl is doing well; poor little

wreck cast upon the sea-beach of life. My children require me tenfold



now. What I shall do, is all confusion and darkness."

The younger Mrs. Sterling was a true good woman; loyal-hearted,



willing to do well, and struggling wonderfully to do it amid her

languors and infirmities; rescuing, in many ways, with beautiful



female heroism and adroitness, what of fertility their uncertain,

wandering, unfertile way of life still left possible, and cheerily



making the most of it. A genial, pious and harmonious fund of

character was in her; and withal an indolent, half-unconscious force



of intellect, and justness and delicacy of perception, which the




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