ld say, "It
is not." Blessings on thee who didst throw a rainbow, that may mean a
promise, across the void, that awoke the old instinct of faith within
me, and has left me "an Agnostic with a faith," quite content with "the
brown earth," if that be all, but with the added significance a mystery
gives to living;--thou who first didst teach me Love's lore aright, to
thee do I owe this thing.

'To J.A.W. I owe the first great knowledge of that other love between
man and man, which Whitman has since taught us to call "the dear love of
comrades"; and to him I owe that I never burned those early rhymes, or
broke my little reed--an unequivocal service to me, whatever the
public, should it be consulted, may think.

'To a dear sister I owe that still more exquisite and subtle comradeship
which can only exist between man and woman, but from which the more
disturbing elements of sex must be absent. And here, let me also thank
God that I was brought up in quite a garden of good sisters.

'To Messrs. C. and W., Solicitors and Notaries, I owe, albeit I will say
no thanks to them, the opportunity of that hardly learned good which
dwells for those who can wrest it in a hateful taskwork, that faculty of
"detachment" which Marcus Aurelius learnt so long ago, by means of which
the soul may withdraw, into an inaccessible garden, and sing while the
head bends above a ledger; or, in other words, the faculty of dreaming
with one side of the brain, while calculating with the other. Mrs.
Browning's great _Aurora Leigh_ helped me more to the attainment of that
than any book I know.

'In their office, too, among many other great things, I learnt that a
man may be a good fellow and hate poetry--possibility undreamed of by
sentimental youth; also that Messrs. Bass and Cope are not unworthy of
their great reputation; and I had various nonsense knocked out of me,
though they never succeeded in persuading me in that little matter of
the "ambrosial curls."

'Through Samuel Dale I first came to understand how "whatever is" _can_
be "best," and also won a faith in God which I rather caught by
infection than gained by any process of his reasoning. Of all else I owe
to Samuel, how write? He knows.

'To a certain friend, mentioned last because he is not least, I owe: the
sum of ten pounds, and a loving companionship, up hill and down dale,
for which again I have no words and no--sovereigns.'

When I first read through these, I was somewhat surprised