But I only could read her thoughts and
grasp her troubles for her. She was at ease with me, let me write to her,
was glad to see me when I came, but perfectly able to do without me. She
was, of course, not human; she inhabited elsewhere. Her 'soul was like a
star and dwelt apart.' She remembered things as they had been, yet not as
affecting her to pleasure or pain; she remembered them as a tale that is
told, as things witnessed. So she remembered me--and so she still does. If
I was there, with her, she was glad; if I was not there, she wasn't sorry.
I was nothing to her but a momentary solace--and I knew it and taught
myself to be contented. I believe that she was the spirit of immortal
youth fleeting over the world. I called her Hymnia. What Beatrice was to
Dante, the visible incarnation of his dream of holiness, such was she to
me. I picture her and Beatrice together in heaven.
'In the clear spaces of heaven,
As sisters and lovers, sit
Beatrice and Thou embraced--
Hand and hand, waist and waist,
And smile at the worship given
By Earth, and the men in it
To whom you were manifest.'
I quote my own poetry, because, oddly enough, nobody else has remarked
upon the fact.
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