January 12th.—I had thought I could be dumb, but I cannot. My sorrow comes in rushes. I lift up my head above the waves for an instant, and immediately I am overwhelmed—“all Thy waves and Thy billows have gone over me.” My nights are a terror to me, and I fear for my reason. That last grip of Sophy’s hand is distinctly on mine now, palpable as the pressure of a fleshly hand could be. It is strange that without any external circumstances to account for it, she and I often thought the same things at the same moment. She seemed to know instinctively what was passing in my mind, so that I was afraid to harbour any unworthy thought, feeling sure that she would detect it. Blood of my blood was she. She said “goodbye” to me with perfect clearness, and in a quarter of an hour she had gone. In that quarter of an hour there could not be the extinction of so much. Such a creature as Sophy could not instantaneously _not be_. I cannot believe it, but still the volume of my life here is closed, the story is at an end; what remains will be nothing but a few notes on what has gone before.
January 21st.—I went to church to-day for the first time since the funeral. Mr. Maxwell preached a dull, doctrinal sermon. Whilst my husband and Sophy lived, I was a regular attendant at church, and never thought of disputing anything I heard. It did not make much impression on me, but I accepted it, and if I had been asked whether I believed it, I should have said, “Certainly.” But now a new standard of belief has been set up in me, and the word “belief” has a different meaning.
February 3rd.—Whenever I saw anything beautiful I always asked Tom or Sophy to look. Now I ask nobody. Early this morning, after the storm in the night, the sky cleared, and I went out about dawn through the garden up to the top of the orchard and watched the disappearance of the night in the west. The loveliness of that silent conquest was unsurpassable. Eighteen months ago I should have run indoors and have dragged Tom and Sophy back with me. I saw it alone now, and although the promise in the slow transformation of darkness to azure moved me to tears, I felt it was no promise for me.
March 1st.—Nothing that is _prescribed_ does me any good. I cannot leave off going to church, but the support I want I must find out for myself. Perhaps if I had been born two hundred years ago, I might have been caught by some strong enthusiastic organisation and have been a private in a great army. A miserable time is this when each man has to grope his way unassisted, and all the incalculable toil of founders of churches goes for little or nothing. . . . I do not pray for any more pleasure: I ask only for strength to endure, till I can lie down and rest. I have had more rapture in a day than my neighbours and relations have had in all their lives. Tom once said to me that he would sooner have had twenty-four hours with me as his wife than youth and manhood with any other woman he ever knew. He said that, not when we were first married, but a score of years afterwards. I remember the place and the hour. It was in the garden one morning in July, just before breakfast. It was a burning day, and massive white clouds were forming themselves on the horizon. The storm on that day was the heaviest I recollect, and the lightning struck one of our chimneys and dashed it through the roof. His passion was informed with intellect, and his intellect glowed with passion. There was nothing in him merely animal or merely rational. . . . To endure, to endure! Can there be any endurance without a motive? I have no motive.