unworthy. In few natures does such love for the good and beautiful survive the ruin of all youthful hopes, the wreck of all illusions.’
‘I supposed our intimacy would terminate when I
left Cambridge. Its continuing to subsist is a matter
of surprise to me. And I expected, ere this, you would
have found some Hersilia, or such-like, to console you
for losing your Natalia. See, my friend, I am three
and twenty. I believe in love and friendship, but I
cannot but notice that circumstances have appalling
power, and that those links which are not riveted by
situation, by interest, (I mean, not mere worldly interest,
but the instinct of self-preservation,) may be lightly
broken by a chance touch. I speak not in
misanthropy, I believe
“Die Zeit ist schlecht, doch giebts noch grosse Herzen.”
‘Surely I may be pardoned for aiming at the same results with the chivalrous “gift of the Gods.” I cannot endure to be one of those shallow beings who can never get beyond the primer of experience, — who are ever saying, —
“Ich habe geglaubt, nun glaube ich erst recht,
Und geht es auch wunderlich, geht es auch schlecht,
Ich bleibe in glaubigen Orden.”
‘Yet, when you write, write freely, and if I don’t like what you say, let me say so. I have ever been frank, as if I expected to be intimate with you good three-score years and ten. I am sure we shall always esteem each other. I have that much faith.’
