I am speechless before the stupendous wisdom of my son in view of his stupendous ignorance.  Already he lectures to the old people about the house on the perfect conduct of life, and the only preparation that he requires for his lectures is a few drops of milk.  By means of these, and without any knowledge of anatomy, he will show us, for instance, what it is to be master of the science of vital functions.  When he regards it necessary to do anything, he does it instantly and perfectly, and the world may take the consequences and the result.  He forthwith addresses himself to fresh comfort and new enterprises for self-development.  Beyond what is vital he refuses to go; things that do not concern him he lets alone.  He has no cares beyond his needs; all space to him is what he can fill, all time his instant of action.  He does not know where he came from, what he is, why here, whither bound; nor does he ask.

My heart aches helplessly for him when he shall have become a man and have grown less wise:  when he shall find it necessary to act for himself and shall yet be troubled by what his companions may think; when he shall no longer live within the fortress of the vital, but take up his wandering abode with the husks and swine; when he shall no longer let the world pass by him with heed only as there is need, but weary himself to better the unchangeable; when space shall not be some quiet nook of the world large enough for the cradle of his life, but the illimitable void filled with floating spheres, out upon the myriads of which, with his poor, puzzled, human eyes, he will pitifully gaze; when time shall not be his instant of action, but two eternities, past and future, along the baffling walls of which he will lead his groping faith; and when the questioning of his stoutest years shall be:  Whence came I?  And what am I?  Why here for a little while?  Where to be hereafter?  A swimmer is drowned by a wave originating in the moon; a traveller is struck down by a bolt originating in a cloud; a workman is overcome by the heat originating in the sun; and so, perhaps, the end will come to him through his solitary struggle with the great powers of the universe that perpetually reach him, but remain forever beyond his reach.  If I could put forth one protecting prayer that would cover all his years, it would be that through life he continue as wise as the day he was born.

The third of June once more.  Rain fell all yesterday, all last night.  This morning earth and sky are dark and chill.  The plants are bowed down, and no wind releases them from their burden of large white drops.  About the yard the red-rose bushes fall away from the fences, the lilacs stand with their purple clusters hanging down as heavily as clusters of purple grapes.  I hear the young orioles calling drearily from wet nests under dripping boughs.  A plaintive piping of lost little chickens comes from the long grass.

How unlike the day is to the third of June two years ago.  I was in the strawberry bed that crystalline morning; Georgiana came to the window, and I beheld her for the first time.  How unlike the same day one year back.  Again I was in the strawberry bed, again Georgiana came to window and spoke to me as before.  This morning as I tipped into her room where she lay in bed, she turned her face to me on the pillow, and for the third time she said, fondly;