you? Yet she wasn't beautiful. Something had maimed her. That might be
the case with two-legged creatures also. I have been thinking about you
a lot. In fact, for the last twenty years there hasn't been anything
else for me to think about, except what is gone. And that is a chapter
by itself. But I want to tell you this: if you are in a tight place of
any sort, moral or financial, come to me, and I shall be grateful. I'm
older, and I have lived in the world. I don't want to be a prig and
hamper you with moral maxims; but if you need me, I want to be there.
Moreover, I want you to grapple alone with life. That's the only way.
To catch systematically at another swimmer is to weaken yourself and
perhaps go down,--as I did, though not for the same reason. I went down
because I never was a strong swimmer in the beginning, and then I
didn't go in for training. Enough of metaphor. I've a sort of legacy,
though, to give you. I was thinking last night what a shame it is that
we never have a fair show with temptation, because a temptation is a
thing that's never recognized until you see its back: like the
hill-wives. But this you may remember; if something seems particularly
enticing to you, and you say, "It wouldn't do for all the world to take
this, but it will do for me," draw back. That is mirage. If you begin
to shield yourself behind what the great souls have done, that, too, is
mirage. The great souls are never so little as in forsaking law for
license. Do not despise what convention has decreed, unless you know it
to be trivial and false. The general consensus of mankind really means
something. A hot-headed and hot-hearted youngling in revolt against
harness is pretty sure to get a galled back--and nothing else. Pin
yourself to law; only make sure that the law is the highest possible.
So much for Polonius. Now, your legacy; and now I have to write things
almost too sacred to be written, and that never could be said. I have
always talked to you about your mother, because you have a right to
know her; but her loss is so fresh, that every word still hurts. She
was probably the most rounded, the purest, the most crystalline nature
ever made. Her perfection could never have been exceeded. Perhaps
Imogen only was her equal. Have you ever thought what it must have been
to such a woman to conceive and bear a child? She loved me. Our life
was as perfect as her desert. Now I know the thoughts--all she could
tell even me--of that girl