RECORDS OF A HEART. 



There are few things more painful than the task of reading 

 and arranging the papers of one who has passed away from 

 earth, with the light of genius, or at least that which seemed 

 like genius, yet undimmed in the soul. The duty is a sad one, 

 for it makes us fearfully sensible of the indefiniteness of human 

 designs, the vanity of human hopes. It admits us into the 

 laboratory of genius, where we behold, in the shattered crucible 

 and wasted elixir, all that remains of a life-long dream. It is 

 like entering the work-shop of the sculptor, where, amid chip- 

 pings from the rough marble and fragments of broken tools 

 and casts, we may find the delicately-moulded hand, the 

 superb bust, the noble statue, all beautiful and full of promise, 

 but attesting by their incompleteness the need of the artist's 

 finishing touch. 



But doubly painful is such research, when it leads us to look 

 into the heart as well as the mind of the departed, — to see 

 not only the strivings of the soaring intellect, but also to note 

 the straggles of the soul yearning for sympathy and love. And 



