Indeed, I seemed gifted with a supernatural firmness, as I made my arrangements for the last day of suffering which I was to endure.

A few friends had been invited to dine with me, and I prepared to meet them.

They came at the hour appointed with smiling faces and warm and friendly greetings; and I received them as if nothing had happened, with even a more enthusiastic welcome than was my wont.
"Oh! it is terrible to smile when the heart is breaking! to talk lightly and freely and mirthfully, when every feeling of the mind is wrung with unutterable agony; to mingle in the laugh and in the gay volleys of convivial fellowship, 'With the difficult utterance of one Whose heart is with an iron nerve put down.' "Yet all this I endured, hour after hour, until my friends departed and I had pressed their hands as at a common parting, while my heart whispered an everlasting farewell! "It was late when they left me.

I walked out to look for the last time upon Nature in her exceeding beauty.

I hardly acknowledged to myself that such was my purpose; but yet I did feel that it was so; and that I was taking an everlasting farewell of the beautiful things around me.
The sun was just setting; and the hills, that rose like pillars of the blue horizon, were glowing with a light which was fast deserting the valleys.