... The silence was so great that I heard the
flight of Death and the morning salute her soul.
"I went downstairs and took her will out of the drawer where she
had put it and told Alfred what she had asked me to do. The room
was dark with people; and a tall man, gaunt and fervid, was
standing up saying a prayer. When he had finished I read the will
through:
My Will [Footnote: The only part of the will I have left out is a
few names with blank spaces which she intended to fill up.], made
by me, Laura Mary Octavia Lyttelton, February, 1886.
"I have not much to leave behind me, should I die next month,
having my treasure deep in my heart where no one can reach it, and
where even Death cannot enter. But there are some things that have
long lain at the gates of my Joy House that in some measure have
the colour of my life in them, and would, by rights of love,
belong to those who have entered there. I should like Alfred to
give these things to my friends, not because my friends will care
so much for them, but because they will love best being where I
loved to be.
"I want, first of all, to tell Alfred that all I have in the world
and all I am and ever shall be, belongs to him, and to him more
than any one, so that if I leave away from him anything that
speaks to him of a joy unknown to me, or that he holds dear for
any reason wise or unwise, it is his, and my dear friends will
forgive him and me.
"So few women have been as happy as I have been every hour since I
married--so few have had such a wonderful sky of love for their
common atmosphere, that perhaps it will seem strange when I write
down that the sadness of Death and Parting is greatly lessened to
me by the fact of my consciousness of the eternal, indivisible
oneness of Alfred and me.
Pages:
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84