Читать книгу A Commonplace Book of Thoughts, Memories, and Fancies - Mrs. (Anna) Jameson - Страница 57

I wish I could realise what you call my “grand idea of being independent of the absent.” I have not a friend worthy the name, whose absence is not pain and dread to me;—death itself is terrible only as it is absence. At some moments, if I could, I would cease to love those who are absent from me, or to speak more correctly, those whose path in life diverges from mine—whose dwelling house is far off;—with whom I am united in the strongest bonds of sympathy while separated by duties and interests by space and time. The presence of those whom we love is as a double life; absence, in its anxious longing, and sense of vacancy, is as a foretaste of death.

“La mort de nos amis ne compte pas du moment où ils meurent, mais de celui où nous cessons de vivre avec eux;” or, it might rather be said, pour eux; but I think this arises from a want either of faith or faithfulness.

“La peur des morts est une abominable faiblesse! c’est la plus commune et la plus barbare des profanations; les mères ne la connaissent pas!”—And why? Because the most faithful love is the love of the mother for her child.