She was vexed at the want of sympathy on my part, and
I again felt that this craving for sympathy did not prove the
inspiration. There was a certain restlessness and fever, which I did
not like should deceive a soul which was capable of greatness. But
jets of magnanimity were always natural to her; and her aspiring
mind, eager for a higher and still a higher ground, made her gradually
familiar with the range of the mystics, and, though never herself laid
in the chamber called Peace, never quite authentically and originally
speaking from the absolute or prophetic mount, yet she borrowed from
her frequent visits to its precincts an occasional enthusiasm, which
gave a religious dignity to her thought.
'I have plagues about me, but they don't touch me now. I thank
nightly the benignant Spirit, for the unaccustomed serenity in
which it enfolds me.
'---- is very wretched; and once I could not have helped
taking on me all his griefs, and through him the griefs of his
class; but now I drink only the wormwood of the minute, and
that has always equal parts,--a drop of sweet to a drop
of bitter. But I shall never be callous, never unable to
understand _home-sickness_.
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