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Saint-Pierre, Bernadin de

"Paul and Virginia"

Those
lively characters upon which light afflictions make a small impression, are
least capable of resisting great calamities.
"'O, my good friend,' said Margaret, 'me-thought, last night, I saw
Virginia dressed in white, amidst delicious bowers and gardens. She said to
me, 'I enjoy the most perfect happiness;' and then approaching Paul, with a
smiling air, she bore him away. While I struggled to retain my son, I felt
that I myself was quitting the earth, and that I followed him with
inexpressible delight. I then wished to bid my friend farewell, when I saw
she was hastening after me with Mary and Domingo. But what seems most
strange is, that Madame de la Tour has this very night had a dream attended
with the same circumstances.'
"'My dear friend,' I replied, 'nothing, I believe, happens in this world
without the permission of God. Dreams sometimes foretell the truth.'
"Madame de la Tour related to me her dream, which was exactly similar; and,
as I had never observed in either of those persons any propensity to
superstition, I was struck with the singular coincidence of their dreams,
which, I had little doubt, would soon be realized.
"What I expected took place. Paul died two months after the death of
Virginia, whose name dwelt upon his lips even in his expiring moments.
Eight days after the death of her son, Margaret saw her last hour approach
with that serenity which virtue only can feel.


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