ense that dawns upon the suffering heart that
it can indeed endure what it had represented to itself as unendurable,
and that however sharply it suffers, there is still an inalienable
residue of force and vitality which cannot be exhausted.

IV

Such a perfect day: the sky cloudless; sunlight like pale gold or
amber; soft mists in the distance; a delicate air, gently stirred,
fresh, with no poisonous nip in it. I knew last night it would be fine,
for the gale had blown itself out, and when I came in at sunset the
chimneys and shoulders of the Hall stood out dark against the orange
glow. The beloved house seemed to welcome me back, and as I came across
the footpath, through the pasture, I saw in the brightly-lighted
kitchen the hands of some one whose face I could not see, in the golden
circle of lamplight, deftly moving, preparing something, for my use
perhaps.

Yet for all that I am ill at ease; and as I walked to-day, far and fast
in the sun-warmed lanes, my thoughts came yapping and growling round me
like a pack of curs--undignified, troublesome, vexatious thoughts; I
chase them away for a moment, and next moment they are snapping at my
heels. Experiences of a tragic quality, however depressing they may be,
have a vaguely sustaining power about them, when they close in, as the
fat bulls of Bashan closed in upon the Psalmist. There is no escape
then, and the matter is in the hands of God; but when many dogs have
come about one, one feels that one must try to deal with the situation
oneself; and that is just what one does not want to do.

What sort of dogs are they? Well, to-day they are things like this--an
angry letter from an old friend to whom something which I said about
him was repeated by a busybody. The thing was true enough, and it was
not wrong for me to say it; but that it should be repeated with a deft
and offensive twist to the man himself is the mischief. I cannot deny
that I said it, and I can only affirm its truth. Was it friendly to say
it? says my correspondent. Well, I don't think it was unfriendly as I
said it. It is the turn given to it that makes it seem injurious; and
yet I cannot deny that what has been repeated is substantially what I
said. Why did I not say it to him? he asks, instead of saying it to an
acquaintance. It might, he goes on, have been conceivably of some use
if I had said it to him, but it can be of no use for me to have said it
to a third person. I have no reply to t