ve a far-off hope that I shall know, that I shall
understand and be satisfied; but sometimes, alas, I fear that my soul
will flare out upon the darkness, and know no more either of weal or
woe.

March 20, 1889.

I am reading a great deal now; but I find that I turn naturally to
books of a sad intimite--books in which are revealed the sorrowful
cares and troubles of sensitive people. Partly, I suppose, it is to get
the sense of comfort which comes from feeling that others have suffered
too; but partly to find, if I can, some medicine for my soul, in
learning how others struggled out of the mire. Thus I have been reading
Froude's Carlyle and Mrs. Carlyle's Letters over again, and they have
moved me strangely and deeply. Perhaps it is mostly that I have felt,
in these dark months, drawn to the society of two brave people--she was
brave in her silences, he in the way in which he stuck doggedly to his
work--who each suffered so horribly, so imaginatively, so inexplicably,
and, alas, it would seem, so unnecessarily! Of course Carlyle indulged
his moods, while Mrs. Carlyle fought against hers; moreover, he had the
instinct for translating thoughts, instantaneously and volubly, into
vehement picturesque speech. How he could bite in a picture, an ugly,
ill-tempered one enough very often, as when he called Coleridge a
"weltering" man! Many of his sketches are mere Gillray caricatures of
people, seen through bile unutterable, exasperated by nervous
irritability. And Mrs. Carlyle had a mordant wit enough. But still both
of them had au fond a deep need of love, and a power of lavishing love.
It comes out in the old man's whimsical notes and prefaces; and indeed
it is true to say that if a person once actually penetrated into
Carlyle's inner circle, he found himself loved hungrily and devotedly,
and never forgotten or cast out. And as to Mrs. Carlyle, I suppose it
was impossible to be near her and not to love her! This comes out in
glimpses in her sad pathological letters. There is a scene she
describes, how she returned home after some long and serious bout of
illness, when her cook and housemaid rushed into the street, kissed
her, and wept on her neck; while two of her men friends, Mr. Cooke and
Lord Houghton, who called in the course of the evening, to her surprise
and obvious pleasure, did the very same. The result on myself, after
reading the books, is to feel myself one of the circle, to want to do
something for them, to