se God, die in harness, but I have never felt it more
strongly than in looking at, and thinking of, him. However strange it is
to be never at rest, and never satisfied, and ever trying after
something that is never reached, and to be always laden with plot and
plan and care and worry, how clear it is that it must be, and that one
is driven by an irresistible might until the journey is worked out! It
is much better to go on and fret, than to stop and fret. As to
repose--for some men there's no such thing in this life. The foregoing
has the appearance of a small sermon; but it is so often in my head in
these days that it cannot help coming out. The old days--the old days!
Shall I ever, I wonder, get the frame of mind back as it used to be
then? Something of it perhaps--but never quite as it used to be. I find
that the skeleton in my domestic closet is becoming a pretty big one."

It would be unjust and uncandid not to admit that these and other
similar passages in the letters that extended over the years while he
lived abroad, had served in some degree as a preparation for what came
after his return to England in the following year. It came with a great
shock nevertheless; because it told plainly what before had never been
avowed, but only hinted at more or less obscurely. The opening reference
is to the reply which had been made to a previous expression of his wish
for some confidences as in the old time. I give only what is strictly
necessary to account for what followed, and even this with deep
reluctance. "Your letter of yesterday was so kind and hearty, and
sounded so gently the many chords we have touched together, that I
cannot leave it unanswered, though I have not much (to any purpose) to
say. My reference to 'confidences' was merely to the relief of saying a
word of what has long been pent up in my mind. Poor Catherine and I are
not made for each other, and there is no help for it. It is not only
that she makes me uneasy and unhappy, but that I make her so too--and
much more so. She is exactly what you know, in the way of being amiable
and complying; but we are strangely ill-assorted for the bond there is
between us. God knows she would have been a thousand times happier if
she had married another kind of man, and that her avoidance of this
destiny would have been at least equally good for us both. I am often
cut to the heart by thinking what a pity it is, for her own sake, that I
ever fell in her way; and if I w