"Next morning (Sunday 8th) I rose early, and, on approaching the
room, heard the dear child's voice as strong, I thought, as usual;
but on entering, I saw death plainly in her face. When I asked her
how she had slept, she said 'Pretty well,' in her usual courteous
manner; but her voice had a sort of hollow and distant softness,
not to be described. When I took her hand on leaving her, she said
(I thought significantly), 'Good-bye, papa.' I will not attempt to
tell what I felt at all this. I went occasionally to listen at the
door of the room, but did not go in, as Bessy, knowing what an
effect (through my whole future life) such a scene would have on
me, implored me not to be present at it.... In about three quarters
of an hour or less, she called for me, and I came and took her hand
for a few seconds, during which Bessy leaned down her head between
the poor dying child and me, that I might not see her countenance.
As I left the room, too, agonised as her own mind was, my sweet
thoughtful Bessy ran anxiously after me, and, giving me a
smelling-bottle, exclaimed, 'For God's sake, don't you get ill.' In
about a quarter of an hour afterwards, she came to me, and I saw
that all was over. I could no longer restrain myself; the feelings
I had been so long suppressing found vent, and a fit of loud
violent sobbing seized me, in which I felt as if my chest were
coming asunder."
Avoiding, after his habit, the actual sensations of horror, Moore took
his wife out for a drive while the funeral was going on. There is no
doubt, as I have said already, something unmasculine in all this
shrinking from the physical impression, and one may trace something of
the luxury of grief in the detailed recital. But the note with which it
closes has the true accent of tragedy:--
"And such is the end of so many years of fondness and of hope; and
nothing is left us but the dream (which may God in his mercy
realise), that we shall see our pure child again in a world more
worthy of her."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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