I have an idea that the Hibernian Iseult must have been a tartar, though Matthew Arnold glosses over her peccadilloes so pleasantly. I wonder whether she had a strong brogue, and a sneaking fondness for usquebaugh."
"Please, don't make a joke of her," pleaded Christabel; "she is very real to me. I see her as a lovely lady—tall and royal-looking, dressed in long robes of flowered silk, fringed with gold. And Tristan——"
"What of Tristan? Is his image as clear in your mind? How do you depict the doomed knight, born to suffer and to sin, destined to sorrow from the time of his forest-birth—motherless, beset with enemies, consumed by hopeless passion. I hope you feel sorry for Tristan?"
"Who could help being sorry for him?"
"Albeit he was a sinner? I assure you, in the old romance which you have not read—which you would hardly care to read—neither Tristan nor Iseult are spotless."
"I have never thought of their wrong-doing. Their fate was so sad, and they loved each other so truly."
"And, again, you can believe, perhaps—you who are so innocent and confiding—that a man who has sinned may forsake the old evil ways and lead a good life, until every stain of that bygone sin is purified. You can believe, as the Greeks believed, in atonement and purification."
"I believe, as I hope all Christians do, that repentance can wash away sin."
"Even the accusing memory of wrong-doing, and make a man's soul white and fair again? That is a beautiful creed."
"I think the Gospel gives us warrant for believing as much—not as some of the Dissenters teach, that one effort of faith, an hour of prayer and ejaculation, can transform a murderer into a saint; but that earnest, sustained regret for wrong-doing, and a steady determination to live a better life——"