To the same:—
‘(Date uncertain.)
‘ ... Herbart is a power. I have not got the book yet. You really must not let yourself be diverted altogether from philosophy. You have not thought and suffered so much for nothing, and though your philosophy will come out in most things, even in stories, you must give it us sometimes “neat.” You remind me of Darwin’s earth-worms; you have had to burrow and work underground, and you have turned up some fruitful soil. Well, the Spirit which led you into the wilderness will bring you out of it, and anoint you to tell some good tidings.’
To the same:—
‘July 4, 1898.
‘ ... I am glad to hear you have come to a satisfactory agreement with Blackwood. It is an advantage to have a leading publisher. Now as regards the sonnet. I don’t feel as if anything could make the Eros of later Greek religion pure. He and Aphrodite have fallen from heaven, and I cannot think of them at the same time with the Sufferer on Calvary—so it rather jars on my feelings.
‘I know there is behind the myth the thought of love, of one who is the offspring of truth and purity, of perfect beauty. But love, associated with Eros as we know him, is not love....
‘I am feeling wonderfully well; the body responds to the spirit, and is refreshed too by the sympathy of my dear children.’
Miss Beale’s correspondence with her ‘children’ frequently concerned spiritual and mental difficulties of various kinds. One or two of the letters she wrote on such questions follow.