That was a strange experience, that sunlit afternoon, a mingling of
deepest pain and softest hope, a touch of fire from the very altar
of faith, linking the beautiful past with the dark present, and
showing me that the future held a promise of perfect graciousness
and radiant strength. Did other lives hold the same rich secrets? I
felt that they did; for that day, at least, all mankind, young and
old alike, seemed indeed my brothers and sisters. In the young men
that went lightly in and out, finding life so full of zest,
thinking each other so interesting and wonderful; in the tired face
of the old Professor, limping along the street; in the prosperous,
comfortable contentment of robust men, full of little affairs and
schemes--I saw in all of them the same hope, the same unity of
purpose, the same significance; and we three in the midst, united
by love and loss alike, we were at the centre, as it were, of a
great drama of life and love, in which even death could only shift
the scene and enrich the intensity of the secret hope.
September 5, 1889.
The rapt and exalted mood that I carried away from Cambridge could
not last; I did not hope that it could. We have had a dark and sad
time, yet with gleams of sweetness in it, because we have realised
how closely we are drawn together, how much we depend on each
other.
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