Feb. 22d.—­Oh, I am frightened at myself, I am so happy!  It seems as if even this whole folio would not in the least convey to you the gladness with which my heart is dancing and singing and making merry.  The doctor seems quite satisfied with my shoulder, and says “it’s first-rate;” so set your heart at rest on that point.  I hope there’ll be nobody within two miles of our meeting.  Suppose you stop in some out of the way place just out of town, and let me trot out there to see you?  Oh, are you really coming?

To G, E. S. March 4, 1844.

I must write a few lines to tell you, my dear cousin, that I am thinking of and praying for you on your birthday.  I have but one request to offer either for you or for myself, and that is for more love to our Redeemer.  I bless God that I have no other want....  I do not know why it is, but I never have thought so much of death and of the certainty that I, sooner or later, must die, as within a few months past.  I am not exactly superstitious, but this daily and hourly half-presentiment that my life will not be a long one, is singularly subduing, and seems to lay a restraining hand upon future plans.  I am not sorry, whatever may be the event, that it is so.  I dread clinging to this world and seeking my rest in it.  I am not afraid to die, or afraid that anything I love may be taken from me; I only have this serious and thoughtful sense of death upon my mind.  You know how we have loved the Willis family, and can imagine how we felt the death of their youngest daughter, who was dear to everybody.  And Mrs. Willis is, probably, not living.  This has added to my previous feeling on the subject, which was, perhaps, first occasioned by the sudden and terrible loss of my poor friend, Mr. Thatcher, a year ago this month. [6] God forbid I should ever forget the lessons He saw I needed, and dare to feel that there is a thing upon earth which death may not touch.  Oh, in how many ways He has sought to win my whole heart for His own!

March 22d.—­I was interrupted last night by the arrival of G. L. P., after his four months’ absence in Mississippi, improved in health, and in looks, and in spirits, and quite as glad to see me, I believe, as even you, in your goodness of heart, say my lover ought to be.  But I will tell you the truth, my dear cousin, I am afraid of love.  There is no other medium, save that of the happiness of loving and being loved, by which my affections could be effectually turned from divine to earthly things.  Am I not then on dangerous ground?  Yet God mercifully shows me that it is so, and when I think how He has saved me hitherto through sharp temptations, it seems wicked, distrust of Him, not to feel that He will save me through those to come.  I know now there are some of the great lessons of life yet to be learned; I believe I must suffer as long as I have an earthly existence.  Will not then God make that suffering but as a blessed reprover to bring me nearer Himself?  I hope so.