Sonia
PAIN, I have realized, is beautiful only when one can rise from its depressing power. I have known people who have become bitter and cynical under the lash of sorrow; and I have known some who never recovered from anguish. My experience is important only so far as it may help others toward growth; it is worthless to me if it implies vanity.

Sonia to me is a fairy tale half told or a lyric half lost in fancy, a delicate melody unsung. Had she grown into full womanhood, she might have become an intellectual; for she was deliberate and clearcut in her language, precise in her reasoning, and keen in sensing nuances which maturer minds about her could not appreciate; then I should have remembered her as reason grown into wit and perhaps into philosophy, but the impression of a fairyland would have been forever lost, the glamor of its poetry never felt even in vague suggestions, and the delicate melodies never perceived. As a friend suggested to me when grief was most oppresive: "You shall always remember her as a child." How beautiful I felt it was! For nothing but poetry could give such a feeling. In such a moment, reason would have destroyed me with consummate triumph; for if I had tried to explain why God had snatched away from me the thing I loved best in life, I would have allowed reason to rob me of sorrow to show me the way to a more beautiful, more full, and nearly perfect life. Sonia shall always live in my memory as a child who wonders why the stars shine in the sky and the rain drops from heaven and the grass grows on the wayside; as a child who finds all things pure and true in her innocent eyes. I shall look in those eyes and see so much confidence and faith when I feel that I am losing my own faith and confidence. I shall draw from my memory of her a child's enthusiasm for life when my heart is heavy and my eyes are dim with age. This is my ideal;