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There is no doubt that to Russie's sufferings and death I owe a large part of my experience of the spiritual life, and especially a comprehension of the secret of the mother's heart, so rarely understood by one of the other sex. But my unfailing facility for getting into hot water was not to find an exception in London.
To make the acquaintance of Lowell we had Professor and Mrs. Max Müller to meet him at dinner, and Tom Taylor was of the company, he living as a near neighbor. But Russie's condition was a shadow over my life, growing deeper every day.
Though his charges were modified to fit our estate, they aggregated, with all his moderation, to a sum which I could ill support; but to save, or even prolong Russie's life, I would have made any sacrifice.
Tricoupi recognized in Russie's lameness the beginning of hip disease, and, returning to Athens, I had a council on him, when it was placed beyond doubt that that deadly disease was established, aided largely by the false diagnosis that substituted severe exercise for the absolute quiet which the malady required. He was at once put in plaster bandages and we were ordered home. Home! But how?
That terrible hereditary conscience could not be laid, and perhaps the boy was fortunate in his early death. To me Russie's death was a crushing disaster. The care and constant preoccupation of my life was taken away, and nothing moved me to activity. I missed him every moment that I was awake, and in my condition I could not rally from the depression caused by the mental void and grief.
When his mother died, I thought that any death were easier to bear than the sudden and terrible tragedy of that; but in the devastated youth and the lingering pain of Russie's leaving, I found that "not all the preaching since Adam Has made Death other than Death."
The Rossettis, especially Christina, who had known Laura and Russie when the latter was a boy of two, were most thoughtful and kind, and I had some wheels put to Russie's cage, so that his passion for seeing, which the incessant pain he was in never abated, could be indulged to a certain extent.
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