It is the great mystery of human life that old grief passes gradually into quiet tender joy.  The mild serenity of age takes the place of the riotous blood of youth.  I bless the rising sun each day, and, as before, my heart sings to meet it, but now I love even more its setting, its long slanting rays and the soft, tender, gentle memories that come with them, the dear images from the whole of my long happy life -- and over all the Divine Truth, softening, reconciling, forgiving!  My life is ending, I know that well, but every day that is left to me I feel how my earthly life is in touch with a new infinite, unknown but apporaching life, the nearness of which sets my soul quivering with rapture, my soul glowing and my heart weeping with joy.

                                                - Fyodor Dostoievsky