me nearer to Maud, to Maggie; my power of loving seems
extinguished, like my power of suffering. I do not know why I write in
this book, why I record my blank apathy. It is a habit, it passes the
time; the only thing that gives me any comfort is the thought that I
shall die, too, and close my eyes at last upon this terrible world,
made so sweet and beautiful, and then slashed and scored across with
such cruel stripes, where we pay so grievous a penalty for feeling and
loving. Tennyson found consolation "when he sorrowed most." But I say
deliberately that I would rather not have loved my child, than lose him
thus.

August 28, 1889.

We are to go away. Maggie droops like a faded flower, and for the first
time I realise, in trying to comfort and distract her, that I have not
lost everything. We are much together, and seeing her thus pine and
fade stirs a dread, in the heart that had been so cold, that I may lose
her too. At last we are drawn together. She came to say good-night to
me last night, and a gush of love passed through me, like the wind
stirring the strings of a harp to music. "My precious darling, my
comfort," I said; the words put, it seemed, on my lips, by some deeper
power. She clung to me, crying softly. Yet, is it strange to say it,
that simple utterance seems almost to have revived her, to have given
her pride and courage? But Maud is still almost a mystery to me. Who
can tell how she suffers--I cannot--it seems to have quickened and
enriched her love and tenderness; she seems to have a secret that I
cannot come near to sharing; she does not repine, rebel, resist; she
lives in some region of unapproachable patience and love. She goes
daily to the grave, but I cannot visit it or think of it. The sight of
the church-tower on my walks gives me a throb of dismay. But now we are
going away. We have been lent a little house in a quiet seaside place;
I suppose I am ill--at least, I am aware of a deep and unutterable
fatigue at times, when I can rouse myself to nothing, but sit
unoccupied, musing, glad to be alone, and only dreading the slightest
interruption, the smallest duty. I know by some subtle sense that I am
seldom absent from Maud's thoughts; but, with her incredible courage
and patience, she betrays nothing by word or glance. She is absolutely
patient, entirely self-forgetful; she quietly relieves me of anything I
have to do; she alters arrangements a dozen times a day, with a ready
smile; and yet