Happy, while I borrowed from your taste, could I have found it not more difficult to imitate your virtues--your spirit of active and extended benevolence, your cheerful piety, your considerate justice, your kindly charity--and all the qualities that brighten a nature more free from the thought of self, than any it has been my lot to meet with. Never more than at this moment did I wish that my writings were possessed of a merit which might outlive my time, so that at least these lines might remain a record of the excellence of the Mother, and the gratitude of the Son.