Page:My Friend Annabel Lee (1903).pdf/98

 "Varying friendship?" said Annabel Lee. "But friendship does not vary."

"No, that is true," I rejoined. "I mean the varying deception I have had from some whom I have loved."

"In time," said my friend Annabel Lee, "you will love more, and your deceiving will be all at once, and bitterer. It will be a rich experience."

"Why rich?" I inquired.

"Because from it," said my friend Annabel Lee, "you will learn to not see too much, to not start out with faith, in fact, to take the goods that the gods provide and endeavor to be thankful for them. Your other experiences have been poverty-stricken in that respect. They leave you with rays of hope, without which you would be better off. They are poor and bitter. What is to come will be rich and bitterer. Their bitterness will prevent you from appreciating the richness of