of song. But sometimes we plunge on rising billows, with the wind
wailing, and the rain pricking the surface with needle-points; we
are weary and uncomforted; and we do not know why we suffer, or why
we are glad. Sometimes I have a far-off hope that I shall know,
that I shall understand and be satisfied; but sometimes, alas, I
fear that my soul will flare out upon the darkness, and know no
more either of weal or woe.



March 20, 1889.


I am reading a great deal now; but I find that I turn naturally to
books of a sad intimite--books in which are revealed the sorrowful
cares and troubles of sensitive people. Partly, I suppose, it is to
get the sense of comfort which comes from feeling that others have
suffered too; but partly to find, if I can, some medicine for my
soul, in learning how others struggled out of the mire. Thus I have
been reading Froude's Carlyle and Mrs. Carlyle's Letters over
again, and they have moved me strangely and deeply. Perhaps it is
mostly that I have felt, in these dark months, drawn to the society
of two brave people--she was brave in her silences, he in the way
in which he stuck doggedly to his work--who each suffered so
horribly, so imaginatively, so inexplicably, and, alas, it would
seem, so unnecessarily! Of course Carlyle indulged his moods, while
Mrs. Carlyle fought against hers; moreover, he had the instinct for
translating thoughts, instantaneously and volubly, into vehement
picturesque speech. How he could bite in a picture, an ugly, ill-
tempered one enough very often, as when he called Coleridge a