thought that the old days were not dead after all.
That they were assuredly there, just as the future was there, a true
part of oneself, ineffaceable, eternal. And hard on the heels of that
came another and a deeper intuition still, that not in such delights
did the secret really rest; what then was the secret? It was surely
this: that one must advance, led onward like a tottering child by the
strong arm of God. That the new knowledge of suffering and sorrow was
as beautiful as the old, and more so, and that instead of repining over
the vanished joys, one might continue to rejoice in them and even
rejoice in having lost them, for I seemed to perceive that one's aim
was not, after all, to be lively, and joyful, and strong, but to be
wiser, and larger-minded, and more hopeful, even at the expense of
delight. And then I saw that I would not really for any price part with
the sad wisdom that I had reluctantly learnt, but that though the
burden galled my shoulder, it held within it precious things which I
could not throw away. And I had, too, the glad sense that even if in a
childish petulance I would have laid my burden down and run off among
the flowers, God was stronger than I, and would not suffer me to lose
what I had gained. I might, I assuredly should, wish to be more free,
more light of heart. But I seemed to myself like a woman that had borne
a child in suffering, and that no matter how restless and vexatious a
care that child might prove to be, under no conceivable circumstances
could she wish that she were barren and without the experience of love.
I felt indeed that I had fulfilled a part of my destiny, and that I
might be glad that the suffering was behind me, even though it
separated me from the careless days.

I hope that in after days I may sometimes make a pilgrimage to the
place where that wonderful truth thus dawned upon me. I have made a
tabernacle there in my spirit, like the saints who saw the Lord
transfigured before their eyes; and to me it had been indeed a
transfiguration, in which Love and sorrow and hope had been touched
with an unearthly light of God.

June 24, 1891.

Yesterday I was walking in a field-path through the meadows; it was
just that time in early summer when the grass is rising, when flowers
appear in little groups and bevies. There was a patch of speedwell,
like a handful of sapphires cast down. Why does one's heart go out to
certain flowers, flowers which seem to have some me