a few narrow pages, and we knew it not! It is a common remark, that by the chain of some trivial habit, some mere conventionality, man is often hampered for years from performance of a novel but obvious duty: something which when done at last, we wonder we had not the courage to do years previously. I think it is so not less frequently with the circumstances of our inward life. A veil rends, a prejudice drops, a foolish criticism is forgotten, a foolish jest has grown flat: sensit puer, salva res est; and the soul, in one happy and memorable half-hour landing in sunshine on a new world, like Columbus and his followers in Turner's exquisite design, sets up the banner of exultant discovery, and takes seisin of her golden inheritance. Then how the birds in the great strange trees are of unlooked-for lustre in plumage and wealth in song, 'larger constellations 'burning', and sunsets of dye and delicacy we never thought could have trembled in flame below the zenith! Not less than such visions I now enjoyed, sitting low over the fire in a dark upper room, or the deep window recesses of our ancient walls in summer sunlight alone, or friends talking blithely by, in these first sympathetic readings of Milton and of Tennyson: names I conjoin with a special pleasure, from the thought that amongst all the holy poets these two are the most absolute masters of English speech, and of the reverent and almost personal affection borne Milton by the younger brother. What I have given here, or attempted, is the pure general impression following acquaintance with the 'Paradise', 'Comus', 'Samson', and the two volumes which were the Tennyson of the time: an impression (let me hasten to add) not only confirmed since and deepened by reflection, but unabated of the glory of its original freshness. These works, like God's (and themselves surely God's also) are, in Goethe's splendid language, per fect to me still as on the first day. Indeed the sweetness of the years of hope and Désirée will sometimes, as I read them, 'flash along the lines and go': in the verses that added delight to delight, something arises yet which not altogether counterfeits consolation. But these are a fairy treasure of my own; I will not run the risk of loss by naming them. And I should refrain, even were this result impossible, in pages written not for criticism, but Désirée. V To my confession of confused thoughts, weak aims, and wasted hours, I should add that the pure love of Nature, partly from the pressure of these new experiences in human life, partly from the notorious want of any conspicuous charm in the surrounding country, in part from a cause (presently to be noticed) which during this. period disinclined me from travelling, gained also no sensible advance. Except indeed by force of the vague pleasure any contemplation of our own youth gives, as the thought of Spring in December, and what secretly underlies that pleasure, remembrance of so many bright faces, and whole days spent between friend and friend,- that now faint and feeble horizon of college residence would be to the writer no alluring retrospect. The predominance of Love, which, like that sky-climbing star, the sun's white-winged 'herald', gave a certain promise of day, a manly aspiration and unity to so much else poor and aimless, is the one feature that redeems it into any ideal beauty. Existence was now too varied and vivacious, the warmth and delight of friendship too satisfying, to suggest such contrasts as I have noted during my school-days, or at least to render them a source of special enjoyment: but I may say with truth, the flower and first fruits of this new life were holy to Her. How often I broke away from joyous expedition, or bright 6 society, from Philosopher and Poet, to be more with the thought of Désirée! How many little fragments of the surrounding landscape, copses by the slow-creeping streams, bare hill-sides, green undulations of heath, even dusty high-roads, and the very angles of the way, still, as I have since seen, or remembered them, recall the sweetness of that one image! How often this thought supplied ardour to study, or refreshment to fatigue! . . . How often (but that was not so often) praised for any work by the dear dear Friend who wasted precious hours in attempt to raise faint faculties to the level of his own large and subtle comprehension, I recorded the triumph, with the prayer that this might be one step more in elevating me to worthiness of her! How always I lay down to sleep in absolute confidence of God's loving-kindness, the sweet fearless assurance that what so many thousand times I had asked in a Heaven-compelling Name, He would give me; trusting all to Him, He would give me my heart's desire, knowing He would never leave or forsake me, that He had promised-and this anguish the fulfilment. . . . Deus, Deus meus, quare me dereliquisti? VI Heaven and earth, I thought then, would rather pass away than that word fail (the text on the fulfilment of which Arnold, a man blessed with more than common happiness, almost founded his faith), Whatsoever ye ask . . . The writer would be untrue to truth, did he not record the defeat of Faith: but, again, he would not dare record it, had he not in the strictest sense enjoyed entire Faith once, reliance the most childly and reposing on the answers of an all-gracious Providence. Every evening at my own home I heard a voice loved and venerated, for the final blessing of the day, read texts rich in those promises : เ The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him, Yea, all such as call upon him faithfully; He will fulfil the desire of them that fear him, He also will hear their cry, and will help them. Commit thy way unto the Lord, and put thy trust in him, Delight thou in the Lord, And he shall give thee thy heart's desire. As I listened to such words, I might almost say with a great Christian, 'Their glory was then so weighty on 'me, that I was both once and twice ready to swoon as I sat; yet not with grief and trouble, but with solid joy and 'peace'; and, going to my own room, hours went by,often till a summer's dawning broadened over the landscape (and if this deserve scorn, I take it gladly) in a thousand prayers for all blessings known to me or unknown on Désirée, for the grace which should make the suppliant worthy of her, for the hope of life. Nor were these exercises of faith narrowed to leisure or silent hours: such thoughts were my litany at every turning-point, everything begun or ended throughout the day. The college routine of chapel attendance, judged of by Wordsworth in the Prelude' as most thinking men will judge it, was then to me, bound in this passionate superstition, one happy privilege more, an hour set aside by a holy consecration to summon up the thoughts of Love 'in her 'own native place,' to be in closer communion with Désirée : -as the organ in its loftiest thunders shook 'the prophets blazon'd on the panes,' to speak her name aloud; to intercalate it in every supplication of the Liturgy. When I add, with truth I may, that an earnest endeavour to carry the precepts of the faith into daily life, and some success, some faults the fewer, some sturdier activity in facing labour and amusement, some penitential renunciation of sin accompanied them, need I further add, that the boy never doubted the efficacy of his prayers ?— prayers, he thought, inscribed surely on some purple pages, and laid up within the archives of Heaven. 6 VII But the answer was not to be yet. When it came, and then after God's fearful irony, by years more granted for deeper appreciation of that dear one, had poisoned the loss with a tenfold bitterness, was I to be blamed, if unable not to give this contradiction between express promise and utter unfulfilment its only name? That a million prayers, and no prayers should bring the same result, is it not sad? If individual experiences are with justice allowed weighty to prove the truth of supernatural mercy, if men appeal to the blessings they enjoy, the things Heaven has done for them, can experiences absolutely opposite be without weight also? I hear the sophist's shallow murmur apparent contradiction'; I know the answers that many who have not undergone such trial, and some who have, will bring forward with triumphant readiness they shall be hereafter considered: one only I meet here with a denial the most forcible I can find words for. That which God for whatever inscrutable purposes withheld, counted high amongst His highest blessings. There lies the bitterness past death, the irremediable calamity. It is truly not the lost Faith I mourn, but the lost Darling. With humble uncertainty on the mysteries I rest satisfied: but the many desolate years have given me large opportunity to judge, and this in circumstances which might well leave the mind free for dispassionate judgment, that in my honoured Désirée I should have gained all that the reason can most calmly prize, or the heart most fondly long for. Tears of blood, were such : |