cases in which Blake, by a minute symbol, expressed a large idea.  One wonders if he knew how large an idea it was.  It is a symbol for me of all the vague, eager, intense longing of the world, the desire of satisfaction, of peace, of fulfilment, of perfection; the power that makes people passionately religious, that makes souls so much greater and stronger than they appear to themselves to be.  It is the thought that makes us at moments believe intensely and urgently in the justice, the mercy, the perfect love of God, even at moments when everything round us appears to contradict the idea.  It is the outcome of that strange right to happiness which we all feel, the instinct that makes us believe of pain and grief that they are abnormal, and will be, must be, set right and explained somewhere.  The thought comes to me most poignantly at sunset, when trees and chimneys stand up dark against the fiery glow, and when the further landscape lies smiling, lapt in mist, on the verge of dreams; that moment always seems to speak to me with a personal voice.  “Yes,” it seems to say, “I am here and everywhere—­larger, sweeter, truer, more gracious than anything you have ever dreamed of or hoped for—­but the time to know all is not yet.”  I cannot explain the feeling or interpret it; but it has sometimes seemed to me, in such moments, that I am, in very truth, not a child of God, but a part of Himself—­separated from Him for a season, imprisoned, for some strange and beautiful purpose, in the chains of matter, remembering faintly and obscurely something that I have lost, as a man strives to recall a beautiful dream that has visited him.  It is then that one most desires to be strong and free, to be infinitely patient and tender and loving, to be different.  And then one comes back to the world with a sense of jar and shock, to broken purposes, and dull resentments, to unkindly thoughts, and people who do not even pretend to wish one well.  I have been trying with all my might in these desolate weeks to be brave and affectionate and tender, and I have not succeeded.  It is easy enough, when one is happily occupied for a part of the day, but when one is restless, dissatisfied, impatient, ineffective, it is a constant and a weary effort.  And what is more, I dislike sympathy.  I would rather bear a thing in solitude and silence.  I have no self-pity, and it is humiliating and weakening to be pitied.  Yet of course Maud knows that I am unhappy; and the wretchedness of it is that it has introduced a strain into our relations which I have never felt before.  I sit reading, trying to pass the hours, trying to stifle thought.  I look up and see her eyes fixed on me full of compassion and love—­and I do not want compassion.  Maud knows it, divines it all; but she can no more keep her compassion hidden than I can keep my unrest hidden.  I have grown irritable, suspicious, hard to live with.  Yet with all my heart and soul I desire to be patient, tolerant, kindly, sweet-tempered.