It was with the thought of her in my mind that I lighted a lamp and began the task of grubbing into Uncle Alan 's trunkful of papers . Most of these were bundles of yellowed letters , of no present interest , from his family and college friends . There were several college theses and essays , and a lot of loose miscellania pertaining to boyish school days . I went through the collection rapidly , until at the bottom of the trunk , I came to a small book bound in dark-green leather . It proved to be a sort of journal , and I began to glance over it with a languid interest . It had been begun in the spring after he had graduated from college . Although suspected only by himself , the disease which was to end his life had already fastened upon him . The entries were those of a doomed man , who , feeling the curse fall on him like a frost , blighting all the fair hopes and promises of life , seeks some help and consolation in the outward self-communing of a journal . There was nothing morbid , nothing unmanly in the record . As I read , I found myself liking Uncle Alan , wishing that he might have lived and been my friend . His mother had not been well that summer and the doctor ordered her to the seashore . Alan accompanied her . Here occurred a hiatus in the journal . No leaves had been torn out , but a quire or so of them had apparently become loosened from the threads that held them in place . I found them later on in the trunk , but at the time I passed to the next page . It began abruptly : This girl is the sweetest thing that God ever made . I had not known a woman could be so fair and sweet . Her beauty awes me , the purity of her soul shines so clearly through it like an illuminating lamp . I love her with all my power of loving and I am thankful that it is so . It would have been hard to die without having known love .
I am glad that it has come XXXXX me , even if its price is unspeakable bitterness .
As after in like on that through to upon with