The Garden of Survival

er life, of event and action, was sufficiently described in those monthly letters you had from me during t

er events and actions are of importance only in so far as they interpret these, since that whic

all to make myself quite clear, and, secondly, because the majority were of so delicate a nature as to render their desc

birth was due to the violent country, or to some process of gradual preparation that had been going forward in me secretly all that time, I cannot tell. No proof, at any rate, offered itself

dness towards my fellow-creatures, less of criticism and more of sympathy, a new love; the “birth of my poetic sense” you also spoke of once; and

thing: I ascribe it entirely to this sharper and more extended sensitiveness to Beauty, this new and exquisite receptiveness that has establi

ss, spendthrift beauty, not in nature merely but in human nature, that passed unrecognized and unacknowledged. The loss seemed so extravagant. Not only that a million flowers waste their sweetness on the desert

apparently unremunerative beauty, this harvest so thickly sown about the world, unused, ungathered

our crowd of questions in advance — we need not seek exactly to discover, although the answer of no uncertain

lives, follow that same ideal with increasing

the truth with terror and resentment; but what

ten to my answer. It is, for me, a defini

ghostly return, or, at least, of posthumous communication. Perhaps I wrong you here, but in any case I would at once correct the inference, if it has been dra

o-suggestion of those few who believe the advertisements of the hair-restorers — you will forgive the unpoetic simile for the sake of its exactitude — as against the verdict of the world that a genuine discovery of such a remedy would leave no single doubter in Europe or America, nor even in the London Clubs! Yet

oof, however, there is

posthumous communication, yet a thread so tenuous that the question of personal direction behind it need hardly be considered at all. For let me confess at once that, the habit of the “thrill” once established, I was not lon

n I could not argue about; but that the guidance — waking a responsive emotion in myself of love — was ref

up my appointment within six months of her death) her memory, already swiftly fading, entered an oblivion whence rarely, and at long intervals only, it emerged at all. In the ordinary meaning of the phrase, I had forgotten her. You will see, therefore, that there was no desire in me to revive an unhappy memory, least of all to establish any fancied communication with one before whose generous love I had felt myself dishonoured, if not act

s origin is recognizable, and that I have traced in part the name it owns to. My next sentence you divine

I have stated my firm conviction that the dead do not return; I do not modify it one iota; but I mentioned a moment ago another conviction that is mine because I know. So n

yet one less easy to express intelligibly. B

it, nor one single flower that “wastes” its sweetness on the desert air, but acknowledges this inexhaustible and spendthrift source. Its evidence lies strewn so thick, so prodigally, about our world, that not one among us, whatever his surroundings and conditions, but sooner or later must encounter at least one marvellous instance of its uplifting presence. Some at once acknowledge the exquisite flash and are aware; others remain blind and deaf, till some experience, probably of pain, shall have prep

ly aware of a vaster outlook upon life, of a deeper insight into the troubles of my fellow-creatures, where, indeed, there burst upon me a comprehension of life’s pain

above, outside of, self. But it was real, as a thunderstorm is real. For, with this glimpse of beauty that I call the “thrill,” I touched, for an instant so brief that it seemed timeless in the sense of having no duration, a pinnac