Page:Confessions of a wife (IA confessionsofwif00adamiala).pdf/66

 without loving, but you can't love without living, and the moment life and love become one— that is a terrible moment. I wrote long ago, in something I have that nobody sees, that joy is terrible. But you don't seem to think so, and that is what perplexes me.

"I remember a book my mother gave me when I was a little girl—I keep it now with my Bible. It is called 'A Story Without an End,' and is one of those old-time allegories about the human soul. A Child who was always spelled with a big C lived in a hut in a forest, alone with the birds and the butterflies, the flowers and the animals, and a little looking-glass covered with cobwebs in which he tried to see himself. And the bluebells were taller than the Child, and delighted me. There was a chapter on Faith, and one on Aspiration, and one on Love; and it seemed to me I understood the chapter stories about Faith, and even about Aspiration, but the one about Love I could not understand, and it troubled me. I seemed to sit down before it as the Child sat under the bluebells that were taller than himself—with his chin in his hands—this way. I'll show you next time we are in the drawing-room together. That is, if you won't disturb me; for I tell you at the beginning, I can't bear to have