ontemptible, surely there cannot be error in making written
language the medium of better utterance than faltering lips can
achieve?"

Reason only answered, "At your peril you cherish that idea, or suffer
its influence to animate any writing of yours!"

"But if I feel, may I _never_ express?"

"_Never!_" declared Reason.

I groaned under her bitter sternness. Never--never--oh, hard word! This
hag, this Reason, would not let me look up, or smile, or hope: she
could not rest unless I were altogether crushed, cowed, broken-in, and
broken-down. According to her, I was born only to work for a piece of
bread, to await the pains of death, and steadily through all life to
despond. Reason might be right; yet no wonder we are glad at times to
defy her, to rush from under her rod and give a truant hour to
Imagination--_her_ soft, bright foe, _our_ sweet Help, our divine Hope.
We shall and must break bounds at intervals, despite the terrible
revenge that awaits our return. Reason is vindictive as a devil: for me
she was always envenomed as a step-mother. If I have obeyed her it has
chiefly been with the obedience of fear, not of love. Long ago I should
have died of her ill-usage her stint, her chill, her barren board, her
icy bed, her savage, ceaseless blows; but for that kinder Power who
holds my secret and sworn allegiance. Often has Reason turned me out by
night, in mid-winter, on cold snow, flinging for sustenance the gnawed
bone dogs had forsaken: sternly has she vowed her stores held nothing
more for me--harshly denied my right to ask better things.... Then,
looking up, have I seen in the sky a head amidst circling stars, of
which the midmost and the brightest lent a ray sympathetic and attent.
A spirit, softer and better than Human Reason, has descended with quiet
flight to the waste--bringing all round her a sphere of air borrowed of
eternal summer; bringing perfume of flowers which cannot
fade--fragrance of trees whose fruit is life; bringing breezes pure
from a world whose day needs no sun to lighten it. My hunger has this
good angel appeased with food, sweet and strange, gathered amongst
gleaning angels, garnering their dew-white harvest in the first fresh
hour of a heavenly day; tenderly has she assuaged the insufferable
fears which weep away life itself--kindly given rest to deadly
weariness--generously lent hope and impulse to paralyzed despair.
Divine, compassionate, succourable influence! When I bend the knee to