1 02 MORE POT-POURRI 



receive grief with dignity is admirably expressed in . this 

 sonnet by Mr. Aubrey de Vere, though the moral reaches 

 almost unattainable heights : 



Count each affliction, whether light or grave, 

 God's messenger sent down to thee ; do thou 

 With courtesy receive him ; rise and bow 

 And, ere his footsteps cross thy threshold, crave 

 Permission first his heavenly feet to lave. 

 Then lay before him all thou hast, allow 

 No cloud of passion to usurp thy brow 

 Or mar thy hospitality ; no wave 

 Of mortal tumult to obliterate 

 The soul's marmoreal calmness. Grief should be, 



Like joy, majestic, equable, sedate, 

 Conforming, cleansing, raising, making free, 

 Strong to control small troubles, to command 

 Great thoughts, grave thoughts, thoughts lasting to the end. 



November 30th. A long, gloomy, lonely day. I 

 thought this evening I would look through a large box I 

 have upstairs full of old letters and papers left to me, and 

 which I have always intended to sort at my leisure. 

 They have been there for years, but I have never had 

 time, in the hurry and business of life, even to glance 

 through them. It is an employment that requires rather 

 a peculiar state of mind, a quiet eddy away from the too 

 rapid swirl of ordinary life. Such an occupation must 

 recall to the memory of anyone who has ever read it 

 Professor Max Miiller's preface to his charming little 

 story called ' German Love,' which was published as long 

 ago as 1877. The little book treats of love the eternal 

 familiar subject with that touch of genius that makes 

 originality, and the preface fits so curiously with my 

 thoughts to-night that I think I must quote it : 



1 Who has not once in his life sat down at a desk 

 where shortly before another sat who now rests in the 

 grave ? Who has not had to open the locks which for 

 long years hid the most sacred secrets of a heart that 



