Madame Meszlenyi endeavoured vainly to recruit her strength
sufficiently to enable her to make a voyage to Belgium in order to
engage lace workers, and to found a permanent and prosperous business,
in which she might before her own death obtain a partner who might
provide the means of accomplishing what lay so near her own heart, the
completion of the education of her daughters when she should be taken
from them.
As the winter of 1853 thus passed, and the succeeding spring opened,
difficulties arose which had not been anticipated, while the exertion
which was attendant upon explanations and negotiations was more than
the feeble spirit was able to bear. Even after arrangements had been
made for her voyage to Europe in the hope that success in her
endeavours might stimulate her energies, and yet prolong her life, it
became evident that nothing in this world could avail further--that if
her earthly hopes were to be brought to fruition it would be by other
hands than hers.
It is some satisfaction for us to know that when Madame Meszlenyi
learnt at last that it would be impossible for her to accomplish the
desire of her heart, the friend in whose house she had resided during
the winter cheered her by an assurance that her children would be
provided for, and that the education so wisely begun under the eye of
the mother would be completed according to her desire. As this desire
was fully known to her beloved sister Emilie, this assurance proved to
be a great consolation to the dying mother.
The last scene should be told in the words of one who speaks with
authority.
"In the course of June she called for the administration of the Lord's
Supper, which she took for the last time from the hands of the
Lutheran clergyman, and continually afterwards expressed that she was
ready and anxious to go. On the afternoon of the 28th of that month
she said to those around her that the hour was approaching, and
summoned her sister Ruttkai and the children to the leave-taking, at
which was also present one of her family physicians, the sister of her
heart and soul being far away.
"Having said the last tender words, and embraced them, she looked at
the doctor earnestly, and inaudibly pronounced the words 'How long?'
'Not long,' he replied gently, and she brilliantly smiled. She
breathed some hours after, but said nothing more except to give a
negative when asked if she were in pain. A humble Hungarian friend who
sat by her bedside, watching her last breath, and at last closed her
eyes, has said that an hour before she died so brilliant a look came
into her face she thought she was going to rally, and perhaps recover.
She then attempted to give her a message to Emilie, of which she
uttered not words enough to be wholly understood by the auditor; then
the wonderful expression faded, and hardly had done so when the last
breath came. It was on the 29th June, 1854, when this noble and gifted
being, at the early age of thirty-four, ascended to the Father of
Spirits."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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