gloom. The burden of the flesh! The frailty of the spirit! The two
things seemed irreconcilable, and yet one endured them both. The world
so full of beauty and joy, and yet the one gift withheld that would
make one content.

And yet it was undeniable that the very sadness that he felt had a
sweet fragrance about it. It was not the sadness of despair, but of
hope unfulfilled. The soul clasped hands with the unknown, with tears
of joy, and leaned out of the world as from a casement, on perilous
seas. Indeed the very wealth of loveliness on every hand, and the
mysterious yearning to take hold of it, to make it one's own, to draw
it into the spirit, the hope that seemed at once so possible and yet so
baffling, gave the key of the mystery. There _was_ a beauty, there
_was_ a truth that was waiting for one, and the sweetness here was a
type of the unseen. It was only the narrow soul that grudged if it was
not satisfied. The brave heart went quietly and simply about its task,
welcoming every delicate sight, every whisper of soft airs, every touch
of loving hands, every glance of gentle eyes, rejoicing in the mystery
of it all; thanking the Lord of life for the speechless wonder of it,
and even daring to thank Him that the end was not yet; and that the
bird must still speed onwards to the home of its heart, dipping its
feet in the crest of the wandering wave, till the land, whither it was
bound, should rise like a soft shadow over the horizon; till the shadow
became a shape, and at last the tall cliffs, with the green downs
above, the glittering plain, the sombre forest, loomed out above one,
just beyond where the waves whitened on the loud sea-beaches, and the
sound of the breakers came harmoniously over the waste of waters, like
the soft tolling of a muffled bell.

XVIII

His Father's Death--Illness--A New Home--The New Light

Up to this time it may be said that Hugh had never felt the pressure of
sordid anxieties, or experienced any sorrows but the sorrows of pure
emotion. But now all at once there fell on him a series of heavy
afflictions. His father died after a very short illness; so little had
a fatal result been expected, that Hugh only reached home after his
death. It happened that the last sight he had had of his father had
been one of peculiar brightness. He had been staying at home, and, on
the morning of his return to Cambridge, had gone into the study for a
parting talk. He had found h