"The sidereal certainty of your movements impresses me. It reminds me of the man who ordered his dinner in England a year in advance, and when the time came he was there to eat it.... Do I feel sure of a life after this? Was ever a note charged with such heavy ballast? To attempt an answer would take a volume,—to give an answer would require a conscience.... While reading Cicero's Tusculan Disputations 'On Grief,' I found a quotation from Sophocles that reminds me of your loss in Philip's death.
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"No comforter is so endowed with wisdom That while he soothes another's heavy grief, If altered fortune turns on him her blow, He will not bend beneath the sudden shock And spurn the consolation he had given. |
"I wonder if you know how poetic you are? Do what you may,—read, write, or talk, you make real life seem ideal, and ideal life seem real. Your sweet 'After Death' is above all praise."
On the appearance of "Robert Elsmere" Mrs. Moulton read it with the greater interest in that, as has already been noted, her own mind constantly reverted to religious problems. Writing to Mrs. Humphry Ward to congratulate her on the achievement, she received the following reply:
Mrs. Ward to Mrs. Moulton
London, June 20, 1888.
Dear Mrs. Moulton: Thanks for your interesting letter in re Robert Elsmere. There is no answer merely to the problems of evil and suffering except that of an almost blind trust. I see dimly that evil is a condition of good. Heredity and environment are awful problems. They are also the lessons of God.
Sincerely yours,
Mary A. Ward.
The publication in 1889 of the collection of poems entitled "In the Garden of Dreams" added greatly to Mrs. Moulton's standing as a poet. On the title-page were the lines of Tennyson: