uld not say that Gertrude's death is happy or
providential or sweet or even perhaps good. But it is something.
"Beautiful" is a good word--but "precious" is the only right word.

It is this passionate sense of the _value_ of things: of the
richness of the cosmic treasure: the world where every star is a
diamond, every leaf an emerald, every drop of blood a ruby, it is
this sense of preciousness that is really awakened by the death of
His saints. Somehow we feel that even their death is a thing of
incalculable value and mysterious sweetness: it is awful, tragic,
desolating, desperately hard to bear--but still "precious." . . .
Forgive the verbosity of one whose trade it is to express the
inexpressible.

The verses he speaks of in this letter, Frances treasured greatly.
She showed them to me, in a book which opens with a very touching
prayer in her own writing. In a later chapter I quote the lines in
which Gilbert writes of his own tone-deafness, and of how he saw what
music meant as he watched his wife's face. Something of the same
effect is produced on me by these verses. Gilbert was not of course
tone-deaf to this tragedy, yet it was chiefly in its effect on
Frances that it affected him.

The sudden sorrow smote my love
That often falls twixt kiss and kiss
And looking forth awhile she said
Can no man tell me where she is.

And again

Stricken they sat: and through them moved
My own dear lady, pale and sweet.

This soul whose clearness makes afraid
Our souls: this wholly guiltless one--
No cobweb doubts--no passion smoke
Have veiled this mirror from Thy sun.

In letters to Frances he could enter so deeply into her grief as to
make it his own. But when he wrote verse and spoke as it were to
himself or to God, the reflected emotion was not enough. These verses
could never rank with his real poetry.

It was not possible in fact for a man so happily in love to dwell
lastingly on any sorrow. And I cannot avoid the feeling that, quite
apart from any theory, cheerfulness was constantly "breaking in." For
Gilbert was a very happy man. Across the top of one of his letters is
written: "You can always tell the real love from the slight by the
fact that the latter weakens at the moment of success; the former is
quadrupled."

The next of his letters is a mingling of the comic and the fantastic,
very special to G.K.C.

11, Paternoster Buildings
(po