duties from reality. Spirit! I accept; teach me to prize and
use whatsoever is given me.'

'At present,' she writes elsewhere, 'it skills not. I am able
to take the superior view of life, and my place in it. But I
know the deep yearnings of the heart and the bafflings of time
will be felt again, and then I shall long for some dear hand
to hold. But I shall never forget that my curse is nothing,
compared with that of those who have entered into those
relations, but not made them real; who only _seem_ husbands,
wives, and friends.'

'I remain fixed to be, without churlishness or coldness, as
much alone as possible. It is best for me. I am not fitted to
be loved, and it pains me to have close dealings with those
who do not love, to whom my feelings are "strange." Kindness
and esteem are very well. I am willing to receive and bestow
them; but these alone are not worth feelings such as mine. And
I wish I may make no more mistakes, but keep chaste for mine
own people.'

There is perhaps here, as in a passage of the same journal quoted
already, an allusion to a verse in the ballad of the Lass of
Lochroyan:--

"O yours was gude, and gude enough,
But aye the best was mine;
For yours was o' the gude red gold,
But mine o' the diamond fine."