luxurious artistic emotion. I remember once saying of a friend that
his work was light and trivial, because he had never descended into
hell. Now that I have myself set foot there, I feel art and love,
and life itself, shrivel in the relentless chill--for it is icy
cold and drearily bright in hell, not dark and fiery, as poets have
sung! I feel that I could wrestle better with the loss of health,
of wealth, of love, for there would be something to bear, some
burden to lift. Now there is nothing to bear, except a blank
purposelessness which eats the heart out of me. I am in the lowest
place, in the darkness and the deep.



January 8, 1889.


Snow underfoot this morning; and a brown blink on the horizon which
shows that more is coming. I have the odd feeling that I have never
really seen my house before, the snow lights it all up so
strangely, tinting the ceilings a glowing white, touching up high
lights on the top of picture-frames, and throwing the lower part of
the rooms into a sort of pleasant dusk.

Maud and the children went off this afternoon to an entertainment.
I accompanied them to the door; what a pretty effect the snow
background gives to young faces; it lends a pretty morbidezza to
the colouring, a sort of very delicate green tinge to the paler
shades. That does not sound as if it would be beautiful in a human
face, but it is; the faces look like the child-angels of
Botticelli, and the pink and rose flush of the cheeks is softly