From Christmas 1889-90 people were already beginning to talk a great deal about the “Influenza epidemic” which was spreading over Europe, and was like a malarial fever. I was in London for a few hours on January 11, and bringing it back to Holmhurst with me, was very ill for nearly a month, but with the comfort of being in my own home, and, to me, the great comfort of being alone. In illness I quite feel the extreme blessing of religion—not the religion worried and touzled by a thousand million vagaries of personality, but the simple main facts, in which I believe so fully. I find some lines of Elizabeth Trench which exactly express what I feel myself:—
“Lord, I believe not yet as fain I would;
Dimly Thy dealings have I understood:
Thy word and message yet to me have brought
Only a shadow of Thy wondrous thought.
Fain would I follow on to know thee, Lord,
Fain learn the meaning of Thy every word;
Truth would I know—the truth that dwells in Thee,
Setting the lowest heart from doubting free.
Lord, I believe! oh fan this trembling spark,
Lest all my hope be lost in endless dark;
And where I yet believe not, lead Thou me,
And help my unbelief, which seeks for Thee.”
“When all fails, and to stand firm seems impossible, stand on the wood of the Cross; it will float with you,” said Queen Marie Leczinska.
“The Mercy of God—all is included in that word Mercy,” was a saying of the Mère Angelique.
Yet I find it very difficult to endure any other religious book than the Bible itself: all are so self-asserting, so self-seeking; and hymns, with one or two sublime exceptions, are either abjectly foolish or full of the self, even if it be the religious self, of man.
Journal.
“Feb. 13, 1890.—In December my old servant Joe Cornford died, who had been all my lifetime in the family service. For several years he had been too old and infirm to do any work, but, when he was well enough, he made a pretence of picking up a leaf or two, and received his wages all the same. If it had not been for his grumbling old wife, it would have been a pleasure to see him slowly dragging himself about the walks, but her temper was a trial! He was worse for some time. One day I went in to the lodge to see him after breakfast, and at that moment he suddenly died! Again, as often before, I felt the wonderful power of the great mystery of death, actually seeing life ebb downwards: the forehead become white and waxen, then the cheeks, then the whole being. How I was reminded of the lines of Caroline Bowles (Mrs. Southey):—
‘Oh change, oh wondrous change!
Burst are the prison bars,
This moment there so low,
So agonized, and now
Beyond the stars!