15 January 1855 – 21 January 1855

S—— and I were invited to be present at the wedding of Mr. J———-'s daughter this morning, but we were also bidden to the funeral services of Mrs. G———, a young American lady; and we went to the "house of mourning," rather than to the "house of feasting." Her death was very sudden. I crossed to Rock Ferry on Saturday, and met her husband in the boat. He said his wife was rather unwell, and that he had just been sent for to see her; but he did not seem at all alarmed. And yet, on reaching home, he found her dead! The body is to be conveyed to America, and the funeral service was read over her in her house, only a few neighbors and friends being present. We were shown into a darkened room, where there was a dim gaslight burning, and a fire glimmering, and here and there a streak of sunshine struggling through the drawn curtains. Mr. G——— looked pale, and quite overcome with grief,—this, I suppose, being his first sorrow,—and he has a young baby on his hands, and no doubt, feels altogether forlorn in this foreign land. The clergyman entered in his canonicals, and we walked in a little procession into another room, where the coffin was placed. Mr. G——— sat down and rested his head on the coffin: the clergyman read the service; then knelt down, as did most of the company, and prayed with great propriety of manner, but with no earnestness,—and we separated. Mr. G——— is a small, smooth, and pretty young man, not emphasized in any way; but grief threw its awfulness about him to-day in a degree which I should not have expected.

Mr. Steele, a gentleman of Rock Ferry, showed me this morning a pencil-case formerly belonging to Dr. Johnson. It is six or seven inches long, of large calibre, and very clumsily manufactured of iron, perhaps plated in its better days, but now quite bare. Indeed, it looks as rough as an article of kitchen furniture. The intaglio on the end is a lion rampant. On the whole, it well became Dr. Johnson to have used such a stalwart pencil-case. It had a six-inch measure on a part of it, so that it must have been at least eight inches long. Mr. Steele says he has seen a cracked earthen teapot, of large size, in which Miss Williams used to make tea for Dr. Johnson. God himself cannot compensate us for being born for any period short of eternity. All the misery endured here constitutes a claim for another life, and, still more, all the happiness; because all true happiness involves something more than the earth owns, and needs something more than a mortal capacity for the enjoyment of it. After receiving an injury on the head, a person fancied all the rest of his life that he heard voices flouting, jeering, and upbraiding him.