A WONDER-BOOK
children, and I know something very good and beautiful that is to be given you hereafter!’
‘Oh tell us,’ they exclaimed,–‘tell us what it is!’
‘Do not ask me,’ replied Hope, putting her finger on her rosy mouth. ‘But do not despair, even if it should never happen while you live on this earth. Trust in my promise, for it is true.’
‘We do trust you!’ cried Epimetheus and Pandora, both in one breath.
And so they did; and not only they, but so has everybody trusted Hope, that has since been alive. And to tell you the truth, I cannot help being glad–(though, to be sure, it was an uncommonly naughty thing for her to do)–but I cannot help being glad that our foolish Pandora peeped into the box. No doubt–no doubt–the Troubles are still flying about the world, and have increased in multitude, rather than lessened, and are a very ugly set of imps, and carry most venomous stings in their tails. I have felt them already, and expect to feel them more, as I grow older. But then that lovely and lightsome little figure of Hope! What in the world could we do without her? Hope spiritualises the earth; Hope makes it always new; and, even in the earth’s best and brightest aspect, Hope shows it to be only the shadow of an infinite bliss hereafter!
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