1890 LETTEE TO DE. PAGET 159 



np after that type, vrith that hope and aspiration ; 

 and I would plead that for their sahes you should 

 sufEer the pain, great as it may be, of being reticent 

 where you long to be ever conmiunicatiye, ever imre- 

 served. You may be unspeakably thankful some day 

 that you did so suffer : — and, whatever comes, you will 

 be stu-e of your children's deepest love and gratitude, 

 if ever they should know that this was one of your 

 acts of self-sacrifice for them. 



Please forgive me, dear Eomanes, where I have 

 "written blunderingly, or given you unnecessary pain. 

 I pray God to guide and teach and gladden both you 

 and yours, and I am 



Your affectionate friend, 



Feaxcis Paget. 



Geanies, Boss-shire, NJB. : June 24, 1886. 



My dear Paget, — I should indeed require to be 

 made of unduly sensitive material, if either the 

 extreme kindness of your thought or the most con- 

 siderate dehcacy of your expression could give me pain. 

 Pain I have, but it is of a kind that is beyond the 

 power of friends either to mitigate or to increase. 



The advice which you give accords precisely with 

 my own view of the matter, and it is needless to say 

 that in such an agreement I find no small degree of 

 satisfaction. Moreover, the principles which it thus 

 appears to be my duty to adopt are made easy for me. 

 ... So that on the whole it does not now appear to me 

 that in its practical aspects the problem is likely to 

 prove difficult of solution ; although theoretically, or 

 as a matter of ethics, I do think it is a complex 



