We both realise that we must learn to retrench at once. We
shall have less than half our former income, counting in what we
hope to get from the old house. I am not at all afraid of that. I
always vaguely disliked living as comfortably as we did--but it
will not be agreeable to have to calculate all our expenses--that
may perhaps mend itself, if I can but begin my writing again.
All this helps me--I am ashamed to say how much--though sometimes
the thought of all the necessary arrangements weighs on me like a
leaden weight, on days when I fall back into a sad, idle, hopeless
repining. Sometimes it seems as if the old happy life was all
broken up and gone for ever; and, so strange a thing is memory and
imagination, that even the months overshadowed by the loss of my
faculty of work seem to me now impossibly fragrant and beautiful,
my sufferings unreal and unsubstantial. Real trouble, real grief,
have at least the bracing force of actuality, and sweep aside with
a strong hand all artificial self-made miseries and glooms.
December 15, 1889.
I have kept no record of these weeks. They have been full of
business, sadness, and yet of hope. We went back home for a time;
we made our farewells, and it moved me strangely to see that our
departure was viewed almost with consternation.
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