And so," she went on smiling,
"many of them lavished their tenderness upon animals or crafty servants
or selfish relations; and grew old and fanciful and petulant before
their time. It seems a sad waste of life that! Because so many of them
are spirits that could have loved finely and devotedly all the time. But
here," she said, "they unlearn their caprices, and live a life by
strict rule--and they go out hence to have the care of children, or to
tend broken lives into tranquillity--and some of them, nay most of them,
find heavenly lovers of their own. They are odd, fractious people at
first, curiously concerned about health and occupation and one can often
do nothing but listen to their complaints. But they find their way out
in time, and one can help them a little, as soon as they begin to
desire to hear something of other lives but their own. They have to
learn to turn love outwards instead of inwards; just as I," she added
laughing, "had to turn my own love inwards instead of outwards."
Then I told Cynthia what I could tell of my own experiences, and she
heard them with astonishment. Then I said:
"What surprises me about it, is that I seem somehow to have been given
more than I can hold.
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