Then on that mood, rising like a star into the blue spaces of the evening, came the thought that the old days were not dead after all. That they were assuredly there, just as the future was there, a true part of oneself, ineffaceable, eternal. And hard on the heels of that came another and a deeper intuition still, that not in such delights did the secret really rest; what then was the secret? It was surely this: that one must advance, led onward like a tottering child by the strong arm of God. That the new knowledge of suffering and sorrow was as beautiful as the old, and more so, and that instead of repining over the vanished joys, one might continue to rejoice in them and even rejoice in having lost them, for I seemed to perceive that one's aim was not, after all, to be lively, and joyful, and strong, but to be wiser, and larger-minded, and more hopeful, even at the expense of delight. And then I saw that I would not really for any price part with the sad wisdom that I had reluctantly learnt, but that though the burden galled my shoulder, it held within it precious things which I could not throw away. And I had, too, the glad sense that even if in a childish petulance I would have laid my burden down and run off among the flowers, God was stronger than I, and would not suffer me to lose what I had gained. I might, I assuredly should, wish to be more free, more light of heart. But I seemed to myself like a woman that had borne a child in suffering, and that no matter how restless and vexatious a care that child might prove to be, under no conceivable circumstances could she wish that she were barren and without the experience of love. I felt indeed that I had fulfilled a part of my destiny, and that I might be glad that the suffering was behind me, even though it separated me from the careless days. I hope that in after days I may sometimes make a pilgrimage to the place where that wonderful truth thus dawned upon me. I have made a tabernacle there in my spirit, like the saints who saw the Lord transfigured before their eyes; and to me it had been indeed a transfiguration, in which Love and sorrow and hope had been touched with an unearthly light of God. June 24, 1891.