July 10, 1890.

I have been sitting out, this hot, still afternoon, upon the lawn, under the shade of an old lime-tree, with its sweet scent coming and going in wafts, with the ceaseless murmur of the bees all about it; but for that slumberous sound, the place was utterly still; the sun lay warm on the old house, on the box hedges of the garden, on the rich foliage of the orchard.  I have been lost in a strange dream of peace and thankfulness, only wishing the sweet hours could stay their course, and abide with me thus for ever.  Part of the time Maggie sate with me, reading.  We were both silent, but glad to be together; every now and then she looked up and smiled at me.  I was not even visited by the sense that used to haunt me, that I must bestir myself, do something, think of something.  It is not that I am less active than formerly; it is the reverse.  I do a number of little things here, trifling things they would seem, not worth mentioning, mostly connected with the village or the parish.  My writing has retired far into the past, like a sort of dream.  I never even plan to begin again.  I teach a little, not Maggie only, but some boys and girls of the place, who have left school, but are glad to be taught in the evenings.  I have plenty of good easy friends here, and have the blessed sense of feeling myself wanted.  Best of all, a sense of poisonous hurry seems to have gone out of my life.  In the old days I was always stretching on to something, the end of my book, the next book—­never content with the present, always hoping that the future would bring me the satisfaction I seemed to miss.  I did not always know it at the time, for I was often happy when I was writing a book—­but it was, at best, a rushing, tortured sort of happiness.  My great sorrow—­what has that become to me?  A beautiful thing, full of patience and hope.  What but that has taught me to learn to live for the moment, to take the bitter experiences of life as they come, not crushing out the sweetness and flinging the rind aside, but soberly, desirously, only eager to get from the moment what it is meant to bring.  Even the very shrinking back from a bitter duty, the indolent rejection of the thought that touches one’s elbow, bidding one again and again arise and go, means something; to defer one’s pleasure, to break the languid dream, to take up the tiny task, what strength is there!  Thus no burden seems too heavy, too awkward, too slippery, too ill-shaped, but one can lift it.  The yoke is easy, because one bears it in quiet confidence, not overtaxing ability or straining hope.  Instead of watching life, as from high castle windows, feeling it common and unclean, not to be mingled with, I am in it and of it.  And what is become of all my old dreams of art, of the secluded worship, the lonely rapture!  Well, it is all there, somehow, flowing inside life, like a stream that is added to a river, not like a leat drawn aside from the current.  The force I spent on art has gone to swell life and augment it; it heightens perception, it intensifies joy—­it was the fevered lust of expression that drained the vigour of my days and hours.