He Lamented That It Had
Been So, Not Only On Account Of The Motherless Childhood And Boyhood
He Had Known,
But chiefly because in after life it was borne in on him
that he had been deprived of something infinitely
Precious which
others have - the enduring and sustaining memory of a love which is
unlike any other love known to mortals, and is almost a sense and
prescience of immortality.
In reading, nothing goes to my heart like any true account of a mother
and son's love for one another, such as we find in that true book I
have already spoken of in a former chapter, Serge Aksakoff's _History
of my Childhood_. Of other books I may cite Leigh Hunt's
_Autobiography_ in the early chapters. Reading the incidents he
records of his mother's love and pity for all in trouble and her self-
sacrificing acts, I have exclaimed: "How like my mother! It is just
how she would have acted!" I will give an instance here of her loving-
kindness.
Some days after her death I had occasion to go to the house of one of
our native neighbours - the humble rancho of poor people. It was not in
my mind at the moment that I had not seen these people since my mother
died, and on coming into the living-room the old mother of the family,
who had grandchildren of my age, rose from her seat with tottering
steps to meet me, and taking my hand in hers, with tears streaming
from her eyes, cried:
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