[S]uppose the mind of [a] friend of humanity were clouded over with his own grief, extinguishing all sympathetic participation in the fate of others; he still has the resources to be beneficent to those suffering distress, but the distress of others does not touch him because he is sufficiently busy with his own; and now, where no inclination any longer stimulates him to it, he tears himself out of his deadly insensibility and does the action without any inclination, solely from duty.
And can it be that in a world so full and busy the loss of one creature makes a void so wide and deep that nothing but the width and depth of eternity can fill it up!
The bustle in a house The morning after death Is solemnest of industries Enacted upon earth,-- The sweeping up the heart, And putting love away We shall not want to use again Until eternity
The dreamer's valuation of a thing lost - not another man's - is the only standard to measure it by, and his grief for it makes it large and great and fine, and is worthy of our reverence in all cases.