And it was the grief that this girl inspired that
prevented me from mourning my mother as I should like to have mourned
her, as she was worthy of being mourned, for she was a good woman, her
virtues shone with more admirable light year after year; and had I
lived with her, had I been with her during the last years of her life,
her death would have come upon me with a sense of personal loss; I
should have mourned her the day she died as I mourn her now,
intimately; when I am alone in the evening, when the fire is sinking,
the sweetness of her presence steals by me, and I realise what I lost
in losing her.
We do not grieve for the dead because they have been deprived of the
pleasures of this life (if this life be a pleasure), but because of
our own loss. But who would impugn such selfishness? It is the best
thing we have, it is our very selves. Think of a mistress's shame if
her lover were to tell her that he loved her because she wished to be
beloved, because he thought it would give her pleasure to be
loved--she would hate him for such altruism, and deem him unworthy of
her. She would certainly think like this, and turn her face from him
for a while until some desire of possession would send her back to
him.
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