But why must He take them? And why should He keep them there? Shall we ever see them framed in their glorious gloom? Will He let us touch them _then_? Or must we stand like a poor worshipper at a Cathedral, looking up at his pictured saint afar off upon the other side? Has everything stopped just here? Our talks together in the twilight, our planning and hoping and dreaming together; our walks and rides and laughing; our reading and singing and loving,--these then are all gone out forever? God forgive the words! but Heaven will never be Heaven to me without them. March 4. Perhaps I had better not write any more here after this. On looking over the leaves, I see that the little green book has become an outlet for the shallower part of pain. Meta Tripp and Deacon Quirk, gossip and sympathy that have buzzed into my trouble and annoyed me like wasps (we are apt to make more fuss over a wasp-sting than a sabre-cut), just that proportion of suffering which alone can ever be put into words,--the surface. I begin to understand what I never understood till now,--what people mean by the luxury of grief. No, I am sure that I never understood it, because my pride suffered as much as any part of me in that other time. I would no more have spent two consecutive hours drifting at the mercy of my thoughts, than I would have put my hand into the furnace fire. The right to mourn makes everything different. Then, as to mother, I was very young when she died, and father, though I loved him, was never to me what Roy has been. This luxury of grief, like all luxuries, is pleasurable. Though, as I was saying, it is only the shallow part of one’s heart--I imagine that the deepest hearts have their shallows--which can be filled by it, still it brings a shallow relief. Let it be confessed to this honest book, that, driven to it by desperation, I found in it a wretched sort of content. Being a little stronger now physically, I shall try to be a little braver; it will do no harm to try. So I seem to see that it was the content of poison,--salt-water poured between shipwrecked lips. At any rate, I mean to put the book away and lock it up. Roy used to say that he did not believe in journals. I begin to see why. III March 7. I have taken out my book, and am going to write again. But there is an excellent reason. I have something else than myself to write about. This morning Phœbe persuaded me to walk down to the office, “To keep up my spirits and get some salt pork.” She brought my things and put them on me while I was hesitating; tied my victorine and buttoned my gloves; warmed my boots, and fussed about me as if I had been a baby. It did me good to be taken care of, and I thanked her softly; a little more softly than I am apt to speak to Phœbe. “Bless your soul, my dear!” she said, winking briskly, “I don’t want no thanks. It’s thanks enough jest to see one of your old looks comin’ over you for a spell, sence--”