'Of course I sometimes wish that it were conviction with him and not policy. My heart aches, hungers sometimes—for another note. If instead of this praise from outside, this cool praise of religion as the great policeman of the world, if only his voice, his dear voice, spoke for one moment the language of faith!—all barren tension and grief and doubt would be gone then for me, at a breath. But it never, never does. And I remind myself—painfully—that his argument holds whether the arguer believe or no. "Somehow or other you must get conduct out of the masses or society goes to pieces. But you can only do this through religion. What folly, then, for nations like Italy and France to quarrel with the only organisation which can ever get conduct out of the ignorant!—in the way they understand!"—It is all so true. I know it by heart—there is no answering it. But if instead he once said to me—"Eleanor, there is a God!—and it is He that has brought us together in this life and work,—He that will comfort you, and open new ways for me"—Ah then—then!—
* * * * *
'Christmas Day. We went last night to the midnight mass at Santa Maria Maggiore. Edward is always incalculable at these functions; sometimes bored to death, sometimes all enthusiasm and sympathy. Last night the crowd jarred him, and I wished we had not come. But as we walked home through the moonlit streets, full of people hurrying in and out of the churches, of the pifferari with their cloaks and pipes—black and white nuns—brown monks—lines of scarlet seminarists, and the like, he suddenly broke out with the prayer of the First Christmas Mass—I must give it in English, for I have forgotten the Latin:
'"O God, who didst cause this most holy Night to be illumined by the rising of the true Light, we beseech Thee that we who know on earth the secret shining of His splendour may win in Heaven His eternal joys."
'We were passing through Monte Cavallo, beside the Two Divine Horsemen who saved Rome of old. The light shone on the fountains—it seemed as if the two godlike figures were just about to leap, in fierce young strength, upon their horses.
'Edward stopped to look at them.
'"And we say that the world lives by Science! Fools! when has it lived by anything else than Dreams—at Athens, at Rome, or Jerusalem?"
'We stayed by the fountains talking. And as we moved away, I said: "How strange at my age to be enjoying Christmas for the first time!" And he looked at me as though I had given him pleasure, and said with his most delightful smile—"Who else should enjoy life if not you—kind, kind Eleanor?"
'When I got home, and to my room, I opened my windows wide. Our apartment is at the end of the Via Sistina, and has a marvellous view over Rome. It was a gorgeous moon—St. Peter's, the hills, every dome and tower radiantly clear. And at last it seemed to me that I was not a rebel and an outlaw—that beauty and I were reconciled.
'Such peace in the night! It opened and took me in. Oh! my little, little son!—I have had such strange visions of you all these last days. That horror of the whirling river—and the tiny body—tossed and torn. Oh! my God! my God!—has it not filled all my days and nights for eight years? And now I see him so no more. I see him always carried in the arms of dim majestic forms—wrapped close and warm. Sometimes the face that bends over him is that of some great Giotto angel—sometimes, so dim and faint! the pure Mother herself—sometimes the Hands that fold him in are marred. Is it the associations of Rome—the images with which this work with Edward fills my mind? Perhaps.