The best
that we can say for them is to hope that they are not as
bad as they seem, and possibly lead to some higher end.
The voices of the ill-used child and of the tortured
animal are the hardest of all for the philosopher to
answer.
Good-bye, old chap! It is quite delightful to think
that on one point at least we are in agreement.
XIV.
1 OAKLEY VILLAS, BIRCHESPOOL, 15th January, 1883.
You write reproachfully, my dear Bertie, and you say
that absence must have weakened our close friendship,
since I have not sent you a line during this long seven
months. The real truth of the matter is that I had not
the heart to write to you until I could tell you
something cheery; and something cheery has been terribly
long in coming. At present I can only claim that the
cloud has perhaps thinned a little at the edges.
You see by the address of this letter that I still
hold my ground, but between ourselves it has been a
terrible fight, and there have been times when that last
plank of which old Whitehall wrote seemed to be slipping
out of my clutch. I have ebbed and flowed, sometimes
with a little money, sometimes without. At my best I was
living hard, at my worst I was very close upon
starvation. I have lived for a whole day upon the crust
of a loaf, when I had ten pounds in silver in
the drawer of my table. But those ten pounds had been
most painfully scraped together for my quarter's rent,
and I would have tried twenty-four hours with a tight
leather belt before I would have broken in upon it.
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