He sometimes hesitates, as at something half sinful, when giving expression to his sadness; because words at best only partially declare what the Soul feels; just as outward Nature cannot fully reveal the inner life.
But “after all” words act like narcotics, and numb pain: so, as if putting on “weeds,” the garb of mourning, he will wrap himself over in words; though these, like coarse clothes on the body, give no more than an outline of his “large grief.”
VI.
The “common” expressions of sympathy with our trouble are very “commonplace”—
“Vacant chaff well-meant for grain.”
A friend asks, “Why grieve?” “Other friends remain;” “Loss is common to the race;” as Hamlet’s mother says, “All that live must die.” Is this comfort? rather the contrary. We know it is so—
“Never morning wore
To evening, but some heart did break.”
The father drinks his son’s health at the war, in the moment when that son is shot.
The mother prays for her sailor-boy when
“His heavy-shotted hammock-shroud
Drops in his vast and wandering grave.”