I Dare Not Hope. I

I Value My Own Independence So Highly That I Can Fancy No Degradation Greater Than That Of Having Another Man Perpetually Directing And Advising And Lecturing Me, Or Even Planning Too Closely In Any Way About My Actions. He Might Be The Wisest Of Men, Or The Most Powerful - I Should Equally Rebel And Resent His Interference.

I Daresay It Seems Foolish; Perhaps All Our Earthly Trials Will Appear Foolish To Us After A While; Perhaps They Seem So Now To Angels. But We Are Ourselves, You Know, And This Is Now, Not Some Time To Come, A Long, Long Way Off. And We Are Not Angels, To Be Comforted By Seeing The Ends For Which Everything Is Sent.

He Could Not - Say Rather, He Would Not - Deny Himself The Chance Of The Pleasure Of Seeing Margaret. He Had No End In This But The Present Gratification.

Well, He Had Known What Love Was-a Sharp Pang, A Fierce Experience, In The Midst Of Whose Flames He Was Struggling! But, Through That Furnace He Would Fight His Way Out Into The Serenity Of Middle Age,-all The Richer And More Human For Having Known This Great Passion.

I Never Did Write A Biography, And I Don't Exactly Know How To Set About It; You See I Have To Be Accurate And Keep To The Facts, A Most Difficult Thing For A Writer Of Fiction.