378 PRÆTERITA-II

on the road beyond Paris; and I found myself in the inn at Beauvais entirely well, with a thrill of conscious happiness altogether new to me.

148. Which, if I had been able to keep!-Another “had been” this, the gravest of all I lost; the last with which I shall trouble the reader.¹

That happy sense of direct relation with Heaven is known evidently to multitudes of human souls of all faiths, and in all lands; evidently often a dream,-demonstrably, as I conceive, often a reality; in all cases, dependent on resolution, patience, self-denial, prudence, obedience; of which some pure hearts are capable without effort, and some by constancy. Whether I was capable of holding it or not, I cannot tell; but little by little, and for little, yet it seemed invincible, causes, it passed away from me. I had scarcely reached home in safety before I had sunk back into the faintness and darkness of the Under-World.

¹ [But there is another presently: see below, p. 384.]

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