The good man who suffers for
his goodness does indeed have to bear the burden of an awful mystery, a
doubt whether God is indeed on the side of the righteous; but he is not
crushed beneath the additional burden of self-contempt, he has not the
humiliating sense of folly and weakness which the transgressor has to
bear; and thus it so often happens that the well-meaning transgressor
is slow to learn the lesson of patience, because he takes refuge in a
vague sort of metaphysics, and attributes to heredity and environment
what is really the outcome of his own wilfulness and perversity.
But the true patience, whatever the cause of its sufferings, brings
with it a blessed sense of the faithful sternness, the fruitful
lovingness of God, who will not let even the feeblest of sinners be
satisfied with less than he can attain, in whose hands the punishment,
like fire, runs swiftly and agonisingly to and fro, consuming the baser
elements of passion and desire.
XI
I am quite sure that I like solitude. There is no pleasure in the world
like waking up in the morning and feeling that absolutely the whole day
is at one's disposal; that one can work when one likes, go out when it
is fine, have one's meals when one prefers, even when one is hungry.
There is no one near enough to drop in, in this blissful corner of the
world, and a caller is a rare bird.
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