us ages of the
world; and I know of nothing more manly, more tender, more exquisitely
touching, than some of these brief notes, written in what Swift calls
"his little language" in his journal to Stella.

He writes to her night and morning often. He never sends away a letter
to her but he begins a new one on the same day. He can't bear to let go
her kind little hand, as it were. He knows that she is thinking of him,
and longing for him far away in Dublin yonder. He takes her letters from
under his pillow and talks to them, familiarly, paternally, with fond
epithets and pretty caresses--as he would to the sweet and artless
creature who loved him. "Stay," he writes one morning--it is the 14th of
December, 1710--"Stay, I will answer some of your letter this morning in
bed. Let me see. Come and appear, little letter! Here I am, says he,
and what say you to Stella this morning fresh and fasting? And can
Stella read this writing without hurting her dear eyes?" he goes on,
after more kind prattle and fond whispering. The dear eyes shine clearly
upon him then--the good angel of his life is with him and blessing him.
Ah, it was a hard fate that wrung from them so many tears, and stabbed
pitilessly that pure and tender bosom. A hard fate: but would she have
changed it? I have heard a woman say that she would have taken Swift's
cruelty to have had his tenderness. He had a sort of worship for her
whilst he wounded her. He speaks of her after she is gone; of her wit,
of her kindness, of her grace, of her beauty, with a simple love and
reverence that are indescribably touching; in contemplation of her
goodness his hard heart melts into pathos; his cold rhyme kindles and
glows into poetry, and he falls down on his knees, so to speak, before
the angel whose life he had embittered, confesses his own wretchedness
and unworthiness, and adores her with cries of remorse and love:--

"When on my sickly couch I lay,
Impatient both of night and day,
And groaning in unmanly strains,
Called every power to ease my pains,
Then Stella ran to my relief,
With cheerful face and inward grief,
And though by heaven's severe decree
She suffers hourly more than me,
No cruel master could require
From slaves employed for daily hire,
What Stella, by her friendship warmed,
With vigour and delight performed.
Now, with a soft and silent tread,
Unheard she moves about my bed:
My sinking spirits now supplies
Wi