sufferings.  Instead of sleeping twelve hours out of the twenty-four, he sleeps but about seven and that by means of laudanum.  Isn’t it a mercy that I have been able to bear so well the fatigue and care and anxiety of these four hard months?  I feel that I have nothing to complain of, and a great deal to be thankful for.  On the whole, notwithstanding my grief about my dear mother’s loss, and my perplexity and distress about baby, I have had as much real happiness this winter as it is possible for one to glean in such unfavorable circumstances. By far the greatest trial I have to contend with, is that of losing all power to control my time.  A little room all of my own, and a regular hour, morning and night, all of my own would enable me, I think, to say, “Now let life do its worst!”

I am no stranger, I assure you, to the misgivings you describe in your last letter; I think them the result of the wish without the will to be holy.  We pray for sanctification and then are afraid God will sanctify us by stripping us of our idols and feel distressed lest we can not have them and Him too.  Reading the life of Madame Guyon gave me great pain and anxiety, I remember.  I thought that if such spiritual darkness and trial as she was in for many years, was a necessary attendant on eminent piety, I could not summon courage to try to live such a life.  Of all the anguish in the world there is nothing like this—­the sense of God, without the sense of nearness to Him.  I wish you would always “think aloud” when you write to me.  I long to see you and the children and Mr. S., and so does George.  Poor G. has had a very hard time of it ever since little Eddy’s birth—­so much care and worry and sleeplessness and labor, and how he is ever to get any rest I don’t see.  These are the times that try our souls.  Let nobody condole with me about our bodies.  It is the struggle to be patient and gentle and cheerful, when pressed down and worn upon and distracted, that costs us so much.  I think when I have had all my children, if there is anything left of me, I shall write about the “Battle of Life” more eloquently than Dickens has done.  I had a pleasant dream about mother and Abby the other night.  They came together to see me and both seemed so well and so happy!  I feel perfectly happy now, that my dear mother has gone home.

To the Same, May 7, 1849.

I used to think it hard to be sick when I had dear mother hanging over me, doing all she could for my relief, but it is harder to be denied the poor comfort of being let alone and to have to drag one’s self out of bed to take care of a baby.  Mr. Stearns must know how to pity me, for my real sick headaches are very like his, and when racked with pain, dizzy, faint and exhausted with suffering, starvation and sleeplessness, it is terrible to have to walk the room with a crying child!  I thought as I lay, worn out even to childishness, obliged for the baby’s