d vain, that the same fierce flame is burning
bright about them; that the reason why they cannot spread and flourish,
like flowers, into the free air, is because the strong roots are
piercing deep, entwining themselves firmly among the stones, piercing
the cold silent crevices of the earth. Ay, indeed! The coal in the
furnace, burning passively and hotly, is as much a force, though it but
lies and suffers, as the energy that throbs in the leaping piston-rod
or the rushing wheel. Not in success and noise and triumph does the
soul grow; when the body rejoices, when the mind is prodigal of seed,
the spirit sits within in a darkened chamber, like a folded chrysalis,
stiff as a corpse, in a faint dream. But when triumphs have no savour,
when the cheek grows pale and the eye darkens, then the dark chrysalis
opens, and the rainbow wings begin to spread and glow, uncrumpling to
the suns of paradise. My soul has taken wings, and sits poised and
delicate, faint with long travail, perhaps to hover awhile about the
garden blooms and the chalices of honied flowers, perhaps to take her
flight beyond the glade, over the forest, to the home of her desirous
heart. I know not! Yet in these sunlit hours, with the slow, strong
pulse of life beating round me, it seems that something is preparing
for one struck dumb and crushed with sorrow to the earth. How soft a
thrill of hope throbs in the summer air! How the bird-voices in the
thicket, and the rustle of burnished leaves, and the hum of insects,
blend into a secret harmony, a cadence half-heard! I wait in love and
confidence; and through the trees of the garden One seems ever to draw
nearer, walking in the cool of the day, at whose bright coming the
flowers look upwards unashamed. Shall I be bidden to meet Him! Will He
call me loud or low?

August 25, 1890.

Maud has been ailing of late--how much it is impossible to say, because
she is always cheerful and indomitable. She never complains, she never
neglects a duty; but I have found her, several times of late, sitting
alone, unoccupied, musing--that is unlike her--and with a certain
shadow upon her face that I do not recognise; but the strange, new,
sweet companionship in which we live seems at the same time to have
heightened and deepened. I seem to have lived so close to her all these
years, and yet of late to have found a new and different personality in
her, which I never suspected. Perhaps we have both changed somewhat; I
do not