“There isn’t any luck in having it, but since we must have it, it’s well to be able to feel it. That shows how alive, how essentially happy, you still are. I’d give a good deal to feel a sorrow. I mean what I say, I envy you. We’ve talked so often about love, you know what I think of that, and how widely I’ve missed my ideal there. In sorrow, too, I’ve missed it. Anyone who sees how wonderful and how brief life is, would hope to know it, if not all of it, at least the high and deep things in it; the awful fate would be to be numb and sleepy, to rest in one’s habits, to let the days simply pass. I wanted to know life down to the quick. Either it can’t be done, or I never found out how. With me, life refuses to be known. It sets me apart, it makes me feel like a special case, and the normal fortunes I wanted—I’m convinced they are normal—seem dream-like.”

“But, Helen, you always seem to me very wise in life. You told me the truth about Damastor long before I could see it, and you are kind not to remind me how I failed to take your advice. You couldn’t know so much if you hadn’t had more experience than you admit.”

“That’s the trouble; I think I do know about life, but not in the right way—not through my own feelings. Adraste, you understand I didn’t come here to talk about myself! I’m trying to show you where I think you are less unfortunate than you believe. Since I haven’t felt experience deeply in myself, I could only study others, try to understand life through them. When you learn to see human beings that way, and yourself, in spite of what they think, as just one more illustration of the common nature, you gain in charity, perhaps you acquire a more generous interest in your fellow beings, but the edge of sorrow is gone—indeed, of most passionate states. It isn’t that you know too much; no one is too wise. But you forget how to cry, and you learn to smile at mankind, beginning with yourself. Love stays with us longer than sorrow, and pain stays longer; they both have somewhat to do with the body. But sorrow, the kind of heartache you have, seems all of the spirit. I’d rather my spirit had not been educated away from it.”

“Helen, you make me sad, talking so. I have reason to know that your heart is tender, that you forgive quickly, that you are just even to—”