But the best visit of all is always to Amesbury, to the friendly poet, and my loving Lizzie, his sister; dearer and dearer she seems to me, now so alone, without her mother. Since Esther went away, my longing love goes after this friend, my own Elizabeth, as if, when Heaven opened to receive one friend, a golden cord were flung down to us two, to bring us nearer each other and nearer the beloved ones up there. But theirs is a home in each other’s love which makes earth a place to cling to for its beauty yet. If I could not think of them together there, of the quiet light which bathes everything within and around their cottage under the shadow of the hill, of the care repaid by gentle trust, of the dependence so blessed in its shelter of tenderness and strength, the world would seem to me a much drearier place; for I have never seen anything like this brother’s and sister’s love, and the home-atmosphere it creates, the trust in human goodness and the Divine Love it diffuses into all who enter the charmed circle. I love to sit with my friends in the still Quaker worship; there is something very soothing in the silence of the place to me, and in glancing upon the faces around me, where “the dove of peace sits brooding.” Then and there, I have often felt the union of all hearts in the truth, where there is no thought of opinion, or sect, or creed, but the one wide communion of trust in one Father and Redeemer which is His church; the gathering of all souls in Him. April 17. I feel better prepared to write than I ever have, and I feel a greater desire to say what I am able to say, if I may. I do not know what my greatest use in life is yet, whether I can do more by teaching or by writing; I wait to be shown and to be guided, and I believe I shall be. April 22.... The best preparation for death is to be alive as fully as one is capable of being; for the transition is not from life to death, but from life to life; _more_ life always. And the time when we are to be called hence need not trouble us, or the way: it is in the heart of the Father to do the best thing for us forever.