A meteor flashed upon me suddenly, very bright, very short-lived; it seemed to me that it was sent for me especially, for it greeted me almost the first instant I looked up, and was gone in a second,--it was as fleeting and as beautiful as the smile upon Esther's face the last time I saw her.

I thought when I talked with her about death that, though she could not come to me visibly, she might be able to influence my feelings; but it cannot be, for my faith has been weaker than ever since she died, and my fears have been greater." A few pages farther on in the diary appears this poem: "ESTHER "Living, the hearts of all around Sought hers as slaves a throne; Dying, the reason first we found-- The fulness of her own.
"She gave unconsciously the while A wealth we all might share-- To me the memory of the smile That last I saw her wear.
"Earth lost from out its meagre store A bright and precious stone; Heaven could not be so rich before, But it has richer grown." "Sept.

19, 1853.

I am surprised to find the verse which I picked up somewhere and have always admired-- "'Oh, reader, had you in your mind Such stores as silent thought can bring, Oh, gentle reader, you would find A tale in everything'-- belonging to Wordsworth and to one of Wordsworth's simple, I am almost ready to say _silly_, poems.

I am in doubt what to think of Wordsworth.
I should be ashamed of some of his poems if I had written them myself, and yet there are points of great beauty, and lines which once in the mind will not leave it.
"Oct.