Chapter 21

We have our secrets, but, guard them as we may, it is not long
before others have them also. We do much talking without words. I
once knew a man who did his drinking secretly and his reeling in
public, and thought he was fooling everybody. That shows how
much easier it is for one to fool himself than to fool another. What
is in a man's heart is on his face, and is shortly written all over
him. Therein is a mighty lesson.

Of all people I ever knew Elizabeth Brower had the surest eye for
looking into one's soul, and I, myself, have some gift of
penetration. I knew shortly that Mrs Brower - wise and prudent
woman that she was - had suspected my love for Hope and her
love for me, and had told her what she ought to say if I spoke of it.

The maturity of judgement in Hope's answer must have been the
result of much thought and counsel, it seemed to me.

'If you do not speak again I shall know you do not love me any
longer,' she had said. They were brave words that stood for
something very deep in the character of those people - a
self-repression that was sublime, often, in their women. As I said
them to myself, those lonely summer days in Faraway, I saw in
their sweet significance no hint of the bitterness they were to
bring. But God knows I have had my share of pleasure and no
more bitterness than I deserved.

It was a lonely summer for me. I had letters from Hope - ten of
them - which I still keep and read, often with something of the old
pleasure - girlish letters that told of her work and friends, and gave
me some sweet counsel and much assurance between the lines.

I travelled in new roads that vacation time. Politics and religion, as
well as love, began to interest me. Slavery was looming into the
proportion of a great issue, and the stories of cruelty and outrage
on the plantations of the South stirred my young blood and made it
ready for the letting of battle, in God's time. The speeches in the
Senate were read aloud in our sitting-room after supper - the day
the Tribune came - and all lent a tongue to their discussion.
Jed Feary was with us one evening, I remember, when our talk
turned into long ways, the end of which I have never found to this
day. Elizabeth had been reading of a slave, who, according to the
paper, had been whipped to death.

'If God knows 'at such things are bein' done, why don't he stop
'em?' David asked.

'Can't very well,' said Jed Feary.

'Can, if he's omnipotent,' said David.

'That's a bad word - a dangerous one,' said the old poet, dropping
his dialect as he spoke. 'It makes God responsible for evil as well
as good. The word carries us beyond our depth. It's too big for our
boots. I'd ruther think He can do what's doable