More Pages from a Journal

by William Hale White

Nothing! nothing! I can imagine Mrs. Perkins’ contempt if I were to confide in her. ‘As good a husband as ever lived. What do you want, you silly creature? I suppose it’s what they call passion. You should have married a poet. You have made an uncommonly good match and ought to be thankful.’ A poet! I know nothing of poets, but I do know that if marriage for passion be folly, there is no true marriage without it.

Blackdeep, 7th February 1839.

I am no clearer now than I was a fortnight ago. I wish I could talk to somebody, and then perhaps my thoughts would settle themselves. Last Sunday I made up my mind I would come to you at all costs; then I doubted, and this morning again I was going to start at once. Now my doubts have returned. Jim notices how worried I am, and I make excuses.

I cannot rest while I am not able to do more than put you off by praying you to bear your lot patiently. It is so hard to stand helpless and counsel patience. Could you give him up and live here? I am held back, though, from this at present. I am not sure what might happen if you were to leave him. Perhaps he would be able to force you to return. You have no charge to make against him which anybody but myself would understand.

I must still wait for the light which I trust will be given me. It is wonderful how sometimes it strikes down on me suddenly and sometimes grows by degrees like the day over Ingleby Fen. I lay in bed late this morning, for I hadn’t slept much, and watched it as it spread, and I thought of my Esther in London who never sees the sunrise.

Homerton, 14th February 1839.

There is hardly anything to record—no event, that is to say—and yet I have been swept on at a pace which frightens me. The least word or act urges me more than a blow. Yesterday I made up my accounts and was ten shillings short. I went over them again and again and could not get them right. I was going to put into the cash-box ten shillings of my own money, but I thought there might be some mistake and that Charles, who always examines my books, would find it out, and that it would be worse for me if he had discovered what I had done than if I had let them tell their own tale. After dinner he asked for them, counted my balance, and at once found out there was ten shillings too little. I said I knew it and supposed I had forgotten to put down something I had spent. ‘Forgotten again?’ he replied; ‘it is unsatisfactory: there is evident want of method.’ He locked the box and book in the desk and read the newspaper while I sat and worked. Next day I remembered the servant had half-a-sovereign to pay the greengrocer, and I had not seen her since I gave it to her. When Charles returned from the bank my first words were, ‘O Charles, I know all about the half-sovereign: I am so glad.’ Would not you have acknowledged you were glad too? He looked at me just as he did the night before. I believe he would rather I had lost the money. ‘Your explanation,’ was his response, ‘makes no difference: in fact it confirms my charge of lack of system. I have brought you some tablets which I wish you to keep in your pocket, and you must note in them every outgoing at the time it is made. These items are then to be regularly adjusted, and transferred afterwards.’ I could not restrain myself.

‘Charles, Charles,’ I cried, ‘do not charge me, as if I had committed a crime. For mercy’s sake, soften! I have confessed I was careless; can you not forgive?’ ‘It is much easier,’ was the answer, ‘to confess and regret than to amend. I am not offended, and as to forgiveness I do not quite comprehend the term. It is one I do not often use. What is done cannot be undone. If you will alter your present habit, forgiveness, whatever you may mean by it, becomes superfluous.’ His lips shut into their usual rigidity. Not a muscle in them would have stirred if I had kissed them with tears. No tears rose; I was struck into hardness equal to his own, and with something added. I hated him. ‘Henceforward,’ I said to myself, ‘I will not submit or apologise; there shall be war.’

16th February 1839.

I left my letter unfinished. War? How can I make war or continue at war? I could not keep up the struggle for a week. I am so framed that I must make peace with those with whom I have disagreed or I must fly. I would take nine steps out of the ten—nay, the whole ten which divide me from dear friends; I would say that this or that was not my meaning. I would abandon all arguing and wash away differences with sheer affection. Toward Charles I cannot stir. Sometimes, although but seldom, my brother Jim and I have quarrelled. Five minutes afterwards we have been in one another’s arms and the angry words were as though they had never been spoken. Forgiveness is not a remission of consequences on repentance. It is simply love, a love so strong that in its heat the offence vanishes. Without love—and so far Charles is right—forgiveness even of the smallest mistake is impossible.