nacity to the trust in love outliving this life. I cannot transmute this trust into joy, as more sanguine spirits do, only it is my all. I can indeed see that there is a sort of sublimity in that loose hold upon personality, that contentment in subserving the progress of others, which distinguish that gifted woman - but those views appall me. And though a few natures are rare enough to dispense with what to others is intuition, instinct, yet they are abnormal, I think-at all events they cannot help the suffering. If she lost her all, could she bear the absolute separation? I think not. I think not. One has heard and read so much condemnation of Mr. Mill's posthumous Essays, but what struck me most was the admission in the last that in the hope of a future life (which to some can only be thought of as further love) there was nothing contrary to reason. What a step that was for him to take, after the long mutilation of his childhood and his youth. His poor father robbed him of childhood indeed. I wonder whether a book entitled "The Unseen Universe" has been at all cared for in America. It has interested me, but less than a little work, "A Theologico-Political Treatise" by George D'Oyly Snow, whose line of thought is much the same as the Duke of Argyll's in the "Contemporary for this month. In that article on Animal Instinct there are many passages which have brought a blessed thrill of hope and trust. You see that to me nothing else signifies. Lines dated Dunkeld, September 20, 1875:— As men born blind must ponder upon light, Since only seeing tells the joy of sight, And hearing only music can explain; So I, Beloved, must needs my spirit strain- Knowledge will widen, - that must mean, for thee, Our life had days and years most glad and fair, Because it rose on an almost despair We two were parted; should we meet? Oh, Love! That says it all; and dying may but prove To Miss Violetta Smith. [1875.] I am to go to the Infirmary once or twice a week. I was there yesterday and saw a sweet young nurse, who will let me know what day suits. I heard a visitor reading in a loud quick hard voice to seven women, one very weak after a severe operation, a commonplace tract, telling them they might die any moment, and asking them what would become of them. "Which should it be, Heaven or Hell? Now is the time for choice." I told the nurse that style of ministration was horrible to me; that if I went, I went as a fellow-creature, certainly inferior in power of bearing pain, lacking that consecration as regarded bodily pain; went not to teach, but if it might be to give a few moments' variety, and perhaps render some small friendly service, take a message, write a letter, supply some trivial want. The young woman plainly understood me. The Saturday visit to the Infirmary has much interest in it. The men are so glad of a paper, and there was a quite lovely Highland woman for whom one could do some small service. Yesterday I went again, taking all my Christmas cards for them to look at, and some for the Highland woman to send to her children in Ross-shire, and I have little commissions for some of them, and must return on Christmas day. I sent to Mrs. Dixon for holly from dear Borrowdale, and last evening it came, and Archie went off with it at once, and the nice nurse was "awfully pleased to get it," for they had only box, and were all full of dressing the wards. Lines dated Edinburgh, December 6, 1875: — WHAT WAS. Only a burst of sunlight, To shine through a budding tree, Only leaf-stars on the noontide blue, Yet a thrill of ecstasy! And this is the spell works such wonders, Beloved — 'T is the eyes of two that see. Only the fire-light flicker On our plain green walls at play ; And we, well shut in by storm without, At close of our third wet day. "Can comfort, can cheeriness, go beyond this?" So two happy voices say. Only the same sweet life— Nothing startling, strange, and new ; But we find fresh meaning and delight And the secret of this we have long agreed WHAT IS. One lonely creature dragging thro' her life, Weeks long as months, and months stretched out to years, Waging with sorrow an unending strife, Counting for sweetest solace, unchecked tears; All impulse, energy, and motive gone, Nothing on earth to call or feel her own, Nothing worth doing, since 't is done alone. This is the lot of one of that glad two! The other's lot - but hope grows voiceless here, Though ever straining for some nearer view Of his high being in that " further sphere;" And pressing to her heart, thro' sharpest pain, The thought that he for all his present gain, Waits for the hour will make them two again. My sorrow is my throne! It lifts me from the dust of earthly care; 'Tis calm and peaceful, though so cold and lone And wider prospects stretch before me there. My sorrow is my crown! A glory round the worn and aching brow; Yet sometimes I could deem I heard his voice, loved voice that guides me, say, "The earth we loved must never trivial seem, Although our joy has passed from earth away. "Go down, at my behest, The smallest, humblest, kindly task to do; I see the thorn-prints; hide them from the rest; Because thou lov'st me so, - love others too." CHAPTER XXXII. NOT AS WITHOUT HOPE. To Lady Eastlake. 137 GEORGE STREET, EDINBURGH, February 23, 1876. ac I HAVE just laid down your delightful paper on the "Two Ampères," dearest Lady Eastlake, and I want so much to talk with you about it. It brings me into such a new world opens out such fresh vistas of what life may be to the rarer spirits whose full development has been fostered by circumstances. I long to know more about Ballanche, that tender faithful soul-content to give itself away," hoping for nothing again." I am so struck with all you say about the "Salon," and its necessary conditions, which indeed can never be found here, where for the most part speech seems an effort, a struggle seldom an impulse where the talk is known to be dull cepted as such-where indeed no one speaks, as the birds sing, from some sweet constraint of joy or sorrow where remark after remark, like a damp match, amounts to a momentary friction hardly a spark, and lights nothing. I remember indeed in the living days long talks with my husband when his bright thought poured out freely and gave me a new sense, and I shall never forget a conversation between him and Mrs. Lewes but for the most part I have never lived with talkers. Our loved friend [Mrs. Jones] used to take such delight in conversation, for which she had herself every requisite. But I don't think it ever occurred to me that it was a thing that could be cultivated. No doubt Madame Mohl is right, and something should be done early in life. One sentence in |