“Some little talk awhile of Me and Thee
There was, and then no more of Thee and Me.”
“Let me say it whilst I have the courage.” Suppose you had the greater courage to write, “I will never say it.” Let me rather cry with Saul, “Farewell to others, but never we part.” And yet I know that we have already parted to meet no more.
XXXVI
OF PARADISE LOST
BY a dispensation of that Providence which, if seldom kind, is sometimes less than malignant, I received your two letters together—the poison and the antidote. I looked at the dates on the postmarks, and I took the poison first. It did not take long to read, and I am glad now that I can truly tell you that my impulse was to ignore your expressed wish, your command, and to at once tell you that I did not believe a single word of those lines, which, if meant to hurt, could not have been better conceived, for truly they were coldly cruel. Indeed, the note was hateful, and so absolutely unlike you, that it must have defeated its object, had that been really as you declared it. If you know me at all, you must have realised that, if I know the Kingdom of Heaven may not be taken by storm, I should never seek for the charity which is thrown to the importunate. But the other letter was there, and in it I found such measure of consolation as is vouchsafed to those who find that, if their path is difficult, they will not tread it alone, and it tends upward. It may not be all we desire—how should it be in a world which is full of
“Infinite passion
And the pain of finite hearts that yearn”?
Still, it is much; and, at the worst, it is death without its sting.