find passages in his letters, and occasional entries in his diaries,
which seem to point to some great stress put upon him, some enormous
burden indicated, which he had not strength to attempt and adopt.
"May God forgive me for my unutterable selfishness; it is irreparable
now," is one of the latest entries on that day in his diary. I
conceive, perhaps, that his outraged ideal was too strong for his
power of forgiveness. He was very fastidious, always.

How deep the blow cut will be shown by these following extracts:

"I once had my faith in human nature rudely wrecked, and it has never
attempted a long voyage again. I hug the coast and look regretfully
out to sea; perhaps the day may come when I may strike into it ...
believe in it always if you can; I do not say it is vanity ... the
shock blinded me; I can not see if I would."

And again—

"Moral wounds never heal; they may be torn open by a chance word, by
a fragment of print, by a sentence from a letter; and there we have
to sit with pale face and shuddering heart, to bleed in silence and
dissemble it. Then, too, there is that constant dismal feeling which
the Greeks called ὕπουλος: the horrible conviction, the grim
memory lurking deep down, perhaps almost out of sight, thrust away by
circumstance and action, but always ready to rise noiselessly up and
draw you to itself."

"'A good life, and therefore a happy one,' says my old aunt, writing
to me this morning; it is marvellous and yet sustaining what one can
pass through, and yet those about you—those who suppose that they