but a
_pre_-sentiment; not a taste only, but a foretaste; and the chief
sweetness said to be found in the former, is dependent altogether upon
the latter. '_Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God_,'
is the belief which, whether true or false as a fact, is implied in the
whole modern cultus of love, and the religious reverence with which it
has come to be regarded. In no other way can we explain either its
eclecticism or its supreme importance. Nor is the belief in question a
thing that is implied only. Continually it is expressed also, and this
even by writers who theoretically repudiate it. Goethe, for instance,
cannot present the moral aspects of Margaret's love-story without
assuming it. And George Eliot has been obliged to presuppose it in her
characters, and to exhibit the virtues she regards as noblest, on the
pedestal of a belief that she regards as most irrational. But its
completest expression is naturally to be found elsewhere. Here, for
instance, is a verse of Mr. Robert Browning's, who, however we rank him
otherwise, is perhaps unrivalled for his subtle analysis of the
emotions:

_Dear, when our one soul understands
The great soul that makes all things new,
When earth breaks up, and heaven expands,
How will the change strike me and you,
In the house not made with hands?_

Here, again, is another, in which the same sentiment is presented in a
somewhat different form:

_Is there nought better than to enjoy?
No deed which done, will make time break,
Letting us pent-up creatures through
Into eternity, our due--
No forcing earth teach heaven's employ?_

_No wise beginning, here and now,
Which cannot grow complete (earth's feat)
And heaven must finish there and then?
No tasting earth's true food for men,
Its sweet in sad, its sad in sweet?_

To the last of these verses a singular parallel may be found in the
works of a much earlier, and a very different writer, only the affection
there dealt with is filial and not marital. In spite of this difference,
however, it will still be much in point.

'_The day was fast approaching_,' says Augustine, '_whereon my mother
was to depart this life, when it happened, Lord, as I believe by thy
special ordinance, that she and I were alone together, leaning in a
certain window that looked into the garden of the house, where we were
then staying at Ostia. We were talking