it. Dante, too, had been in the depths and drunk the bitter lees of
despair. I shall want a little library when I come out, a library of a
score of books. I wonder if you will help me to get it. I want Flaubert,
Stevenson, Baudelaire, Maeterlinck, Dumas _père_, Keats, Marlowe,
Chatterton, Anatole France, Théophile Gautier, Dante, Goethe,
Meredith's poems, and his 'Egoist,' the Song of Solomon, too, Job, and,
of course, the Gospels."

"I shall be delighted to get them for you," I said, "if you will send me
the list. By the by, I hear that you have been reconciled to your wife;
is that true? I should be glad to know it's true."

"I hope it will be all right," he said gravely, "she is very good and
kind. I suppose you have heard," he went on, "that my mother died since
I came here, and that leaves a great gap in my life.... I always had the
greatest admiration and love for my mother. She was a great woman,
Frank, a perfect idealist. My father got into trouble once in Dublin,
perhaps you have heard about it?"

"Oh, yes," I said, "I have read the case." (It is narrated in the first
chapter of this book.)

"Well, Frank, she stood up in court and bore witness for him with
perfect serenity, with perfect trust and without a shadow of common
womanly jealousy. She could not believe that the man she loved could be
unworthy, and her conviction was so complete that it communicated itself
to the jury: her trust was so noble that they became infected by it, and
brought him in guiltless.[4] Extraordinary, was it not? She was quite
sure too of the verdict. It is only noble souls who have that assurance
and serenity....