Wisdom from Dickens

"If anything could soothe the first sharp pain of a heavy loss, it would be--with me--the reflection, that those I mourned, by being innocently happy here, and loving all about them, had prepared themselves for a purer and happier world. . . . "

"The recollection of past pleasure may become pain. . . .To remember happiness which cannot be restored is pain, but of a softened kind. . . .The good in this state of existence preponderates over the bad, let mis-called philosophers tell us what they will. If our affections be tried, our affections are our consolation and comfort; and memory, however sad, is the best and purest link between this world and a better." (Nicholas Nickleby, p. 65)