l for devising it. I think there are many things to
learn yet--I hope so; and by economizing and not hurrying too fast I
think they will last weeks and weeks. I hope so. When you cast up a
feather it sails away on the air and goes out of sight; then you throw
up a clod and it doesn't. It comes down, every time. I have tried it and
tried it, and it is always so. I wonder why it is? Of course it
DOESN'T come down, but why should it SEEM to? I suppose it is an optical
illusion. I mean, one of them is. I don't know which one. It may be
the feather, it may be the clod; I can't prove which it is, I can only
demonstrate that one or the other is a fake, and let a person take his
choice.

By watching, I know that the stars are not going to last. I have seen
some of the best ones melt and run down the sky. Since one can melt,
they can all melt; since they can all melt, they can all melt the same
night. That sorrow will come--I know it. I mean to sit up every night
and look at them as long as I can keep awake; and I will impress those
sparkling fields on my memory, so that by and by when they are taken
away I can by my fancy restore those lovely myriads to the black sky and
make them sparkle again, and double them by the blur of my tears.

After the Fall

When I look back, the Garden is a dream to me. It was beautiful,
surpassingly beautiful, enchantingly beautiful; and now it is lost, and
I shall not see it any more.

The Garden is lost, but I have found HIM, and am content. He loves me as
well as he can; I love him with all the strength of my passionate
nature, and this, I think, is proper to my youth and sex. If I ask
myself why I love him, I find I do not know, and do not really much care
to know; so I suppose that this kind of love is not a product of
reasoning and statistics, like one's love for other reptiles and
animals. I think that this must be so. I love certain birds because of
their song; but I do not love Adam on account of his singing--no, it is
not that; the more he sings the more I do not get reconciled to it. Yet
I ask him to sing, because I wish to learn to like everything he is
interested in. I am sure I can learn, because at first I could not stand
it, but now I can. It sours the milk, but it doesn't matter; I can get
used to that kind of milk.

It is not on account of his brightness that I love him--no, it is not
that. He is not to blame for his brightness, such as it is, for he did
no