CHAPTER IX

FIRST EXPERIENCE OF EDINBURGH

It is the great miracle of life—that first glow and uplifting of the soul in touch with the Unseen. “The immediate consciousness of the religious man,” said Hegel, “has in it an infinite worth, because an infinite content.” For the moment it seems as if all the difficulties of life were swept away, as if nothing temporal could matter any more. But if the world at large is to be ennobled and spiritualised by these individual experiences, the inspiration has got to be worked out in “the commonplace clay with which the world provides us.”

And here comes in an all-important point, to which, on the whole, far too little significance has been attached. To some of those who have the vision, Fate gives a tractable, malleable lump of clay, limited in mass, fine in texture, ready to respond to the lightest touch of the potter: and so we get sweet and saintly characters whose lives will bear the minutest inspection—such characters as Maurice and Eugénie de Guérin, or the wonderful family described in _Le Récit d’une Soeur_. But there are some to whose lot a very different problem falls. The big and rough jobs of the world-spirit have to be tackled somehow. There are unwieldy masses of clay, full of grit and impurities, masses that do not seem to respond to the creative impulse at all. Rough handling, bold tunnelling may be required; and if it be true,—as it is—that the first beauty of the spiritual vision seems degraded in _any_ attempt at realization, how much more is this the case when the seer is baffled and thwarted at every turn by the sheer inertness and stupidity of the lump, so to speak, when he is forced to resort to almost brutal methods in order to get his idea expressed at all.

God gives man the vision and the lump of clay; and many a man who escapes the censure of his fellows gives back the two separately to God, like the talent wrapped in a napkin: some men are privileged to return a piece of work that all eyes can value in a trice: and some, “with aching hands and bleeding feet” have merely blocked out a great conception, have half-unconsciously drafted the rough outline of one of the Almighty’s big schemes, an outline on the details of which smaller souls will be abundantly occupied for generations to come.

Before we judge of the finish of a man’s life, before we judge of its correspondence with what he believes to be his inspiration, let us ask— What was the extent of the problem it had to grapple with?—What was the mass and what the condition of the clay?—What, in a word, was the man’s _task_?

There must, of course, be some sort of affinity, some mesmeric attraction,—even if this should seem to show itself in an actual distaste—between the man and the task. So far as human stupidity makes this possible, we must believe that God Almighty chooses His man, and the work of the Almighty would be singularly limited in range if He chose for His purpose only those whose natural endowments are such as to make them an unqualified credit to any cause they may espouse.

All this must be specially borne in mind in judging the subsequent life of S. J.-B. We are bound, of course, to ask how she worked out in life this beautiful vision of her adolescence—bound to ask how she realized in practice the “infinite (potential) worth and content” of that first radiant consciousness; but before we attempt to answer the question, we must take into full account the extent and the difficulty of the task that fell to her share, and we must give full weight to the natural attributes which were the tools placed at her disposal.

It is clear that there was about her a doggedness, a high-handedness, a disregard of tradition, an actual—if superficial—roughness, which are not common qualities among the highly-educated of either sex, and which were never admired in her own. On the other hand, the reader of the foregoing pages will no longer need to be told of her tenderness and sensitiveness—of a capacity for loving and for suffering only commensurate with her power of inspiring love, of incurring suffering. In a sense she was a born fighter, but it is a very nice question how far she enjoyed a fight. Thousands of times throughout life she might truly have repeated the extract from her diary quoted on p. 46:

“This brought down an awful storm of wonder, reasoning, etc., till at length I got off to bed _so_ tired.”

The diary continues after the extract quoted in the last chapter:

“And now to turn to the outer facts of life.

Here I am, my London College life over, with all its pleasures, all its cares, all its responsibilities, all its glorious delight at times.

Ten terms have I kept,—ten passed since the beginning of that second volume of mine! How sorrowfully meagre seems the record. Yet ‘the world could scarcely contain’ what _might_ have been written.

My rooms in Nottingham Place given up (first and second floors let to Vs.). The world before me. Alice only bound to me. My life in Scotland to begin whenever rested. Wants sufficient resolution to make that ‘when.’ Yet I expect very needful.

I suppose the shock to my whole being of the last three months could not be easily reckoned. Two months today since I left N.P.!

Again the burden has been lightened since my resolve (how inadequately worked out!) of Sunday night. Not only Watch, but _Work_ and wait!...

By-the-bye, Frid’s lovely Christmas gift,—Christ on the Cross. The Child Christ and verses (her’s?)

‘The love that brings salvation _Shall_ at last prevail!’

Amen.”

“My life in Scotland to begin whenever rested.”

It is not easy to say what induced S. J.-B. to seek farther education in Scotland, except that she was anxious to extend her experience in every possible way. A few years later, thanks to the efforts of Mrs. Crudelius, Professor Masson, Miss Louisa Stevenson, and others, the University Classes for Women at Shandwick Place were successfully started, but in 1862 there is no reason to think women were better off in Edinburgh than in any other town of the same size. A report seems to have gone forth, however, of the superior advantages offered by some institution, and S. J.-B. went north—accompanied by her faithful maid, Alice—full of hope and ambition. On her last night at home, by an interesting coincidence, she heard a sermon that impressed her on the text: “They have no changes: therefore they fear not God.”

The link that bound her with the world on which she was entering was of the slightest. Mrs. Burn Murdoch (_née_ Miss Dora Monck Mason) was an old schoolfellow, a contemporary of Caroline Jex-Blake, and the traveller carried with her an introduction to Miss Margaret Orr, sister of Captain (now General) Orr who afterwards married one of the Norfolk cousins, Miss Henrietta Cubitt. In these acquaintanceships—both of which were to ripen into lifelong friendships—S. J.-B. was very fortunate; but as far as the immediate object of the pilgrimage was concerned, she was destined to bitter disappointment.

Here is her own account of her first lesson:

“Then went in to the Arithmetic class. Found the first division doing Proportion! And, oh, such teaching! First question:—‘If cloth is bought for 2s. a yard, at what price must it be sold to gain 25 per cent?’ ... exhortation following in this style,—‘Now say and exameen carefully’ (_broad_ Scotch) ‘I think ye’ll find it need consideration, etc.’ ‘It’s not quite a deerect question, etc., etc.’ ‘Now what will be the third terrm?’ ‘Stand up the ladies who can answer. What, Miss McCreechie! I think ye’ll hardly tell me, but ye can try, etc., etc.’ And, sure enough, long took this abstruse question to solve.

And such a lesson! No explaining,—some scolding, some shouting,—a good deal of cry and small wool. Then he came to me. ‘Can ye do proportion?’ ‘Yes (!) I want to do Algebra.’ ‘Ay,—but that’ll be Friday. But do ye know Fractions?’ I intimated an idea that I did. He didn’t seem at all to believe it,—‘did I understand them?’ I felt rather absurd and hypocritical, and again said I _did_ rather decidedly. However not a bit would he believe me,—gave me (as a severe test, I suppose) ¾ x ⅝ to do and explain. Well,—did it! ‘But why?’ I am sure I shall always hereafter have pity on unfortunate examinees pounced upon. The whole thing seemed so absurd,—I was so annoyed,—it seemed so silly standing up by that imp of a Sandy with a slate,—that I very nearly failed to give any rational explanation. However I did somewhat, and he had rather grudgingly to grant, ‘Ay, I see ye know it.’ Then, when I asked him about the Algebra, it seemed he had none but quite beginners (don’t I pity them?) and ‘it wasn’t his subject’! in fact, clearly enough he didn’t know as much as I did. Amazed at my astounding erudition, ‘Where had I learned?’ ‘Oh, in England.’ ‘Ay?’ (very surprised) ‘the English gairls generally come very bad at Arithmetic,—we’ve one just now doesn’t know her tables.’ I laughed out. ‘Well, you mustn’t take her for a specimen.’ He seemed to think that the national average! ‘Ay, but most we’ve had are very bad at it,’ very resolutely. He must be a good judge by the specimen I saw. Well, he kept hovering round me as a sort of strange animal, and told me how the girls changed every year, and how he went through from the First Rules to Decimals as the _ne plus ultra_.”

Clearly there was nothing to be gained here, so next morning she “explained and apologised” to the Principal, and found him “very nice and pleasant.” Her first impulse was to go straight back to London (in fact arrangements were made for her to live with Miss Wodehouse and study at Bedford College) but in the end wiser counsels prevailed. That arithmetic class was not the high-water mark of Edinburgh achievement even as regarded the education of its women. S. J.-B. made the acquaintance of Miss Blyth, who introduced her to Mr. Begbie, Miss de Dreux and others, so she settled down to a varied course of work, living comfortably in lodgings with Alice to “do for her.” To Mr. Begbie she expresses her gratitude over and over again.

“Mathematics not much with S. In answer to Miss de Dreux told the truth. They so nice sensible and honest,—teachers born, ‘without respect of persons’. Mr. Begbie glad to hear truth,—promises me a better far tomorrow. Mr. Weisse a good teacher,—right good. German less formidable than I expected.”

One gathers from the letters that she made an extraordinarily vivid impression on her teachers: several of them refused to take fees, and Mr. Begbie persisted in his refusal.

“Miss de Dreux said my coming and work had given her a fresh impetus and help forward. Isn’t that nice?”

On the whole these first months in Edinburgh though she talks afterwards of their “grey pain,” were perhaps the high-water mark of S. J.-B.’s life as regards sheer balance and beauty of living. She was having, it is true, no physical recreation, but, apart from that, her faculties were all called equally into play. She was working steadily and hard, chiefly at her beloved mathematics: her wider reading included _Jane Eyre_, _Le Juif Errant_ and _Aids to Faith_: she was profoundly interested in religious problems and conscientiously attended the churches of the best-known Edinburgh ministers: she was happy in her friendships, and still more in the passing beauty of her relation to her Mother: above all, the flame of her religious life—in which was almost merged at this time her devotion to Miss Octavia Hill—was burning with a clearness that made it easy to ignore the little jars and frictions. Even politics were not crowded out. “Daddy is here,” says Mrs. Jex-Blake in one of her letters, “and says, ‘Tell dearest Sophy I would not have the _Times_, which she makes such excellent use of, given up on any account.’”

One cannot read the record of this period of her life without feeling that it was mainly here and now that her character was made,—that it was the resolute determination with which she took to work and stuck to it as the remedy for intolerable heartache—that enabled her in later years to bear the brunt of all she came through.

It is interesting to hear what she herself has to say about the various elements in her life referred to above:

“There never was such a book as _Jane Eyre_—of its kind. Talk of ‘finding’—that finds me through and through continually. How people _dare_ speak ill of such a book,—I suppose they simply can’t understand it. Its grand steadfastness and earnestness and purity, is something glorious. I read and re-read it as I never could another novel, and how it helps one!”

Again:

“_Aids to Faith_ put into my trunk by that dear old Mother who in her weaker moment entertains an uncomfortable kind of desire to proselytize me,—and yet can’t be quite dissatisfied.

Immensely interested in _Aids to Faith_. Read Cook’s Ideology and Subscription, Brown’s ‘Inspiration,’ and am reading Mansel’s ‘Miracles.’ The last gives me a glimpse of light and clearness I never had before. As far as I have read (and remember _Essays and Reviews_, which I must get) I think this side has it. As to Ideology I don’t understand it and don’t like to take the whole account from the adverse side (though there seems great fairness and scholarlike equity). As to subscription, I think Cook has it,—I never could heartily sympathize with the other position, though I know it is held by quite good and honest men. I suppose one real question might arise,—Who is to determine the real sense of the Church? For doubtless very grave doubts are found among equally good men.

As to ‘Inspiration,’ though I like the Essay, I hold more with E. and R. a good deal. Most of all with Coleridge as quoted in _Aids_,—‘what finds me’ is its own witness, but why impose upon me what is not, because bound in the same covers?”

One finds among her papers brief notes of sermons by Rainy, Candlish, Guthrie and Pulsford, of whom the last appealed to her most.

“The prayers are what I can’t manage in the Scottish kirk. ‘Other people’s’ need too much effort to approve or disapprove to leave your spirit free to _pray_. I find more and more the value and _rest_ of the Liturgy.... Saw Unitarian chapel. Shall I go? Don’t expect to be in near such real sympathy as with Church of England. Octa always said so. Bless her!”

For many reasons she was anxious to bring herself into line with the orthodox; she accuses herself of being too ready for an argument with her Calvinistic friends (what earnest spirit is not too ready for an argument at her age?) and at this time she read the Gospels carefully through “with a fresh mind,” taking notes that might have a bearing on dogma. If it distressed her to arrive at an unorthodox conclusion, this was mainly because such a conclusion seemed to separate her from those she loved best.

In the meantime she had made the acquaintance of Mr. Pulsford, and had called to have a talk with him about her difficulties.

“Much helpful sympathy and no horror of my questionings (how helpful that is!) but not much direct word gain. I suppose it must be _lived_ out. He clearly does hold the Trinity, yet not, I think, as some do. Certainly not the vicarious Atonement. He uses nearly Maurice’s words,—‘To present humanity perfect to God.’ (I think they are Maurice’s.) He believes Christ the man to have been God, but at first in His manhood unconscious of His Godhead. This seems to me very questionable and not clear. However, as I said—and he agreed thoroughly—not being a question of spirit but of history, it is not vital to me now, and living and desiring to know, we _shall_ know.

He again spoke strongly of not talking to people who _can’t_ understand.”

The contrast of the next paragraph in the diary is irresistible:

“A mouse caught at last. Odd, how it annoys me! ‘Shall I drown it, ma’am?’ ‘Oh, let it eat its cheese first!’ How Octa’d laugh! Faugh!— poor little thing, how it struggled for its life,—and how my heart beat! It was some courage to resolve it shouldn’t suffer longer than need be.”

About her friends she has much to say as usual. On March 31st she writes to Cousin Ellie:

“Now for friends. I think I really may put that word to Dora Burn Murdoch and Margaret Orr, short as the time seems in days since I have known them; but then days sometimes go for weeks and they have both been _so_ kind to me. ‘I was a stranger and they took me in.’ [Dora’s] charity for others is something quite beautiful, her unconsciousness of other people’s inferiority to her,—her width of thought, and power of understanding those differing most widely from herself—most admirable. You never hear her by any chance say a harsh thing, a spiteful thing or a narrow thing,—neither do you ever hear a weak one.”

She speaks many times in her diary of the rest and refreshment derived from visits to Mrs. Burn Murdoch. But she was working too hard, and Mrs. Jex-Blake’s letters at this time take on an even deeper note than usual of love, appreciation and solicitude. Varieties of note-paper were not great in those days, so S. J.-B. had possessed herself of a large quantity of common brown envelopes (similar to those used for the delivery of telegrams) in order that her Mother might see at a glance— without putting on her spectacles!—whether the postman had brought the all-important thing. Many are Mrs. Jex-Blake’s references to “the precious brown envelope,” “the dear brown letters”; and well might she prize them. Indeed one does not know which to admire more,—the painstaking labour with which S. J.-B., at the end of a hard day’s work, strove to keep her Mother informed of all she was thinking and doing and trying to do—or the painstaking labour with which her Mother strove to understand and sympathize. She writes at great length about _Jane Eyre_, about the higher education of women, and she enters into her daughter’s religious arguments with a largeness of soul that is simply uplifting:

“I expect,” she says, “I quoted in commas the very words _you_ wrote about the Atonement. The rest was, of course, my able and learned commentary. I _think_ I did take your words in your sense, though I couldn’t help their _expanding_—you will perhaps say, narrowing,—in my view. He will guide us both into all truth.”

The following extracts give some idea how these beautiful letters go on:

May 6th. “I don’t think I ever had a letter from you that I did not enjoy and enter into sympathy with, because I never will open them _till_ I can enjoy them. Sometimes one has come at dinner time with others when Mr. O. has been here, and he has said,—‘Why don’t you open the brown letter? I know it interests you.’ I answer, ‘Just because I can’t fully enjoy it’.”

May 7th. “You have a glorious field of usefulness before you. No one can guess to what extent you may be permitted to be useful to the generations to come. Plod on; expect rough waves that seem ready to overwhelm your best energies, and almost quench life; but One sitteth above the water floods Who will always bear you through.”

May 8th. “My heart’s desire is that you should know _the truth of God_, whether it be what I believe or not, and that I should know it too.” (Previously she had written,—“I was thinking today how surely God would guide you into all truth,—this text confirming the thought,— ‘If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God.’)

I think my cup of blessing would be fuller than I could bear did _we two_ fully agree on that which must be all-absorbing and by far the most interesting of subjects. Though C. and I essentially agree, we cannot communicate with each other—our natures are so different. I don’t think I do her justice or fully understand her.”

May 9th. “We do well to struggle against that weary powerless feeling, because, given way to, it might overcome all power of energy, but I quite believe it is sometimes part of appointed discipline, and it is no use to quarrel with ourselves for it. Still I do incline to believe in your present case it proceeds from exhaustion of the nervous system, occasioned by a shock struggled against with all your power. You will be better when Dora is back, and you get real interchange of thought and loving sympathy. God bless her for giving it to my darling. Try not to allow yourself to think on getting up,—‘How long will it be before I lie down to rest again?’ Remember you desire to give yourself to service, though not so active just now, for others. Remember as a help how many bless you for having sped them on their way. Your want just now is someone to be helped and braced for usefulness.”

(“Never fail,” writes Mr. Jex-Blake, “to tell me of any case you know of like that of the suffering governess; it is blessed to receive in such cases, but doubly blessed to give.”)

May 10th. “Own darling, you write me such charming long letters, you quite spoil me.... I suppose your work in Edinburgh has been very intense while it lasted, and proportionately exhausting,—and then you don’t, as a schoolboy does, get any reaction the other way. You have no one to play with,—_no_ positive recreation. I always think the games and perpetual ‘outings’ in public schools such a fine arrangement; and then an Oxonian or Cantab. has his boat or his ride, My darling has positively nothing. Don’t little one overwork herself: such concentration of thought as you give in one hour is very exhausting.”

May 11th. “I fear it is impossible for me fully to appreciate your child, and, even had you done differently, I question whether she and I ever would have got at each other, but I _quite_ believe in the noble-heartedness you speak of. I would with avidity seize any opening she offered, but I fear she will not make it. In the present distortion of vision, she is more likely to suppose I am inclined to alienate you from her. Had your’s been a common friendship, I should have thought it possible that ‘Art might conceal too much,’ but she knows you in spite of all your faults and independently of them,—and surely the wine was a messenger of love. You _dared_ not have sent it had you not been bound up in her.”

On a previous occasion Mrs. Jex-Blake had written on this subject:

“How very remarkable and interesting is Mr. Pulsford’s statement about valued friends apparently lost for a time. I had no idea that your’s was a case that ever occurred,—I mean of increased love—a stronger, deeper, truer love: it is really very grand.” “I fancy I like ‘Sorrow’ better than ‘Fidelis,’[24] but the latter is wonderfully your picture. _I_ can scarcely grasp it, though I wonder and admire.”

Footnote 24:

Poems by A. A. Procter.

May 13th. “I have nearly finished _Jane Eyre_, and like much of it exceedingly. What I object to is the personal handling she allows ... and, grand as her conduct is, she marries a man of very exceptionable conduct, and who to the last had a relish for swearing.... I think she makes St. John very unfairly disagreeable,—his icy coldness very unnatural....”

May 15th. “Well, darling, you and I must wait to talk it out about _Jane Eyre_. I shall never be able to write it out. It appears to me you have built up a wall to knock down.[25] I don’t at all ask a different code of morals for men and women. But I do wish a woman to be refined and pure, not because I am conventional, but because I think it essential to self-respect and dignity.... I don’t believe high-toned governesses fall in love with their employers.... I think it _very cruel_ upon the race of governesses to put it into people’s heads they are to fall in love. I always, since I took a district in 1836 felt the tenderest, most motherly pity for any misguided girl.... I certainly never did or will read impure things in books or newspapers. I consider familiarity with impurity rubs the bloom off the plum, which never can be restored. Minds differ, some almost enjoy to read queer things. Impurity does not seem to me to find any response in you: you can come in contact and it runs off like quicksilver—leaves no print. I don’t think that is common.”

Footnote 25:

The letter has not been preserved.

“A letter from Elinor. She talks of enjoying your letters so much.... I am very glad Plumptre has sent you a testimonial you like. I fully expected he would send (if asked) a _very_ handsome one.

The world has many kind hearts, has it not?—none like my own child.”

And again, talking of a sermon she had heard:

“I thought of my precious child when he pictured a strong character with exceeding depth of tenderness and gentleness.”

One understands more and more fully the fervour with which S. J.-B. was wont to say in her later years,—“No one ever had such parents as mine!” “How I _wish_ you had known my mother!”

* * * * *

One naturally treats S. J.-B.’s religious life at this time as something apart from her questionings about dogma, for indeed the two belonged to different categories of her being. The following is one of the few letters of this period that have been preserved:

8 p.m. March 17th, 1862.

“DARLING MOTHER,—I know you care to hear all your child’s thoughts and hopes and feelings,—I know you will not condemn for conceit and egotism what might seem so to other people.

I want to talk to you,—I feel so sure you want to hear. I want to tell you what a glorious Strength and Power has come out of all the sharp pain,—how I feel that I am a better person, a stronger and more real one, than I ever was before....

Some one says that it is ‘not pain undergone but pain accepted’ that bears fruit an hundredfold. You know the acceptance has not been easy,—you know sometimes the flints have cut my feet deep enough, but thank God for two things—I never for any single moment lost the absolute certainty of Infinite Love and Wisdom ‘brooding over the face of the waters,’—the certainty of my Father’s arms around me,—and secondly that no suffering or pain could shake the love that has never been half so strong, so real, so ideal, so unselfish as now. I doubt if I ever half knew what being a friend was before,—I think I have earned the knowledge now—some of it.

And, Mother, about my work. I cannot tell you the strong exulting feeling that seems to set God’s seal to my work, in that through all the personal agony I have held firm to _that_: at no moment, I believe, would I have purchased what I longed for most on earth at the price of that,—that I have felt through all ‘The light may be taken out of my life (and thank God how far that is from being so!) but the object never can!’ Don’t you know how the lines that reminded us of the oath upon our head, that bade us ‘never again our loins untie, or let our torches waste or die’ was the strong helpful thing through it all.

And though I did believe in myself—and _thou_ ever didst believe in me, Mother!—yet so long as my work ‘walked in silken shoon’ and lay side by side with the pleasantest life possible for me, there was a certain thought about fair weather sailing,—a certain (not doubt, but) diffidence in looking on to the time of breakers,—a feeling as of David, ‘I have not _proved_ them.’ But now I feel that I have come to the proof,—that my armour has not failed in the battle,—something the sure happy confidence (farthest of all from presumption) ‘I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.’ You can’t think how it ‘heartened’ me (you know that nice old word?) to find that truly as well as verbally my work does hold the first place....

I am beginning to have hope, Mother! If I only suffer enough—and I don’t believe mine will ever be a smooth or easy life—I may yet be fit to _be_ the head for which I am looking so earnestly....

But all seems centred in the one thought, ‘Lead Thou me on!’—or rather, not ‘me’ but ‘us,’—all the wanderers.

Yours very lovingly, SOPH.”

Not that S. J.-B. was ever conventional even in her religion. Here is a characteristic extract from the diary of the same period:

“You never have the common honesty, Jack, in this most private journal (they say hardly anyone _has_) to put down the thought if it crosses your mind ‘Well, I think I am rather a fine fellow’ or its equivalent. Because it never comes? Oh, dear your precious ‘humility’! I wish Miss W. could look into you:—_do_ you? Not you, you humbug!

‘Well, but,’ (retorts S. J.-B. accused) ‘I _do_ work with a single purpose,—I _have_ tried very hard, and, am sure, succeeded somewhat in this hard battle of these months,—what is the good of pretending to call myself names? Did not Job ‘maintain his integrity’?

You coward! You must skulk behind Job. Looks respectable, does it? Say honestly ‘I do try harder than some people do,’ for in truth I believe that is all your conceit does amount to.

I know from my heart I do recognize and reverence holiness and purity as far above mine as Snowden to a mole-hill. And _is_ that conceit? I don’t believe it is. No,—‘Not guilty, S. J.-B.’ Plead boldly, and don’t give in for shamefacedness. And besides you have no right to deny His triumph ‘Who giveth us the victory,’—by fighting modest on the sham. You _have_ won some victories. Thank God quietly, and pressing on to the things before. ‘I press towards the mark.’ God knows—and _you_ know—there are enough to win. Oh, _how_ far away lies doing even what is our ‘duty to do.’ But I don’t know that the realest soundest life limits itself to calling itself ‘miserable sinner.’ Zacchaeus told Christ what he tried to do. He did not rebuke him as man does and say, ‘No, believe yourself utterly vile (for the glory of your Maker?)’

There,—go to bed, S. J.-B.”

A few days later she recurs—as often—to the broken friendship:

“... Well, I note markedly how, with all this light, all this growth,— respecting the suffering—(and I think all this would have brought a ‘right judgement’ too) I do not swerve one iota from my judgement of _facts_. I cannot conceive it one hairsbreadth more possible that any but a mental cloud can have worked in the way it has,—that under any possible circumstances my child, with her glorious nature and heart, can have acted as her image has....[26]

But while I have at last manfully and honestly and cheerily faced the possibility of never seeing her again on earth—while I believe my loins are girded for the way quite irrespective of any future fate regarding her and me—while, having put my hand to the plough, God shall grant me grace never to look back even for her (who, God knows, is far enough before me) never to linger irresolute with thoughts that should and shall urge me to double speed,—yet it is curious how the whole fashion of my life shapes itself with the _arrière-pensée_ of being ready for her ‘at midnight or cock-crowing or in the morning,’— saving with the thought of her as well as myself,—looking at every path as it opens to see that it is wide enough to tread together if she joins me ere its end,—making the most of the working time now that a pause of rest may fall due whenever she comes to claim the ‘moon.’

And I think, could she see my thoughts, my plans, my work, my resolves, she would not have them otherwise.”

Footnote 26:

More than a year later Miss Hill wrote: “I wonder if it would be any comfort to you if you could know the infinite love the thought of you, specially of any pain of yours, calls up ... how passionately do I cling to a like trust in you that your pain may not be tenfold increased ... by any sense of desertion in spirit.... And yet, Sophy, this thought of me must fail you as time goes on, for you cannot see why I act as I do.... My love will be ready for you when He who is teaching us both shall bring us together again.”