s; but this is evil nourishment, unwholesome and bad for her."

She was about to rise; but he bent forward, with a zealous conviction
that he must not allow himself to be interrupted, and lightly touched her
arm as though to prevent her quitting her seat, while he went on
unhesitatingly:

"You feed on your old sorrows! Well and good. Many a time have I seen
that trial can elevate the soul. It can teach a brave heart to feel the
woes of others more deeply; it can rouse a desire to assuage the griefs
of others with beautiful self-devotion. Those who have known pain and
affliction enjoy ease and pleasure with double satisfaction; sufferers
learn to be grateful for even the smaller joys of life. But you?--I have
long striven for courage to tell you so--you derive no benefit from
suffering because you lock it up in your breast--as if a man were to
enclose some precious seed in a silver trinket to carry about with him.
It should be sown in the earth, to sprout and bear fruit! However, I do
not blame you; I only wish to advise you as a true and devoted friend.
Learn to feel yourself a member of the body to which your destiny has
bound you for the present, whether you like it or not. Try to contribute
to it all that your capacities allow you achieve. You will find that you
can do something for it; the casket will open, and to your surprise and
delight you will perceive that the seed dropped into the soil will
germinate, that flowers will open and fruit will form of which you may
make bread, or extract from it a balm for yourself or for others! Then
you will leave the dead to bury the dead, as the Bible has it, and
dedicate to the living those great powers and gracious gifts which an
illustrious father and a noble mother--nay, and a long succession of
distinguished ancestors, have bequeathed to a descendant worthy of them.
Then you will recover that which you have lost: the joy in existence
which we ought both to feel and to diffuse, because it brings with it an
obligation which it which is only granted to us once to fulfil. Kind fate
has fitted you above a hundred thousand others for being loved; and if
you do not forget the gratitude you owe for that, hearts will be turned
to you, though now they shun the tree which has beset itself
intentionally with thorns, and which lets its branches droop like the
weeping-willows by the Nile. Thus you will lead a new and beautiful life,
receiving and giving joy. The isolated and charmless