All the good of life seemed
for the time departed, and their souls lived but as leafless trees that
had forgotten the joy of the summer, and whom no wind prophetic of spring
had yet visited. They moved about mechanically, and had not strength
enough left to wish to die.
"The next day the clouds were higher, and a little wind blew through such
loopholes in the turrets as the false improvements of the inmates had not
yet filled with glass, shutting out, as the storm, so the serene visitings
of the heavens. Throughout the day, the brother took various opportunities
of addressing a gentle command, now to one and now to another of his
family. It was obeyed in silence. The wind blew fresher through the
loopholes and the shattered windows of the great rooms, and found its way,
by unknown passages, to faces and eyes hot with weeping. It cooled and
blessed them.--When the sun arose the next day, it was in a clear sky.
"By degrees, everything fell into the regularity of subordination. With
the subordination came increase of freedom.
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