Better she had been
dead, better a thousand times that she had come to the sharp end before
her time, than that such a face should be her son's only memory of his
mother.
The lines of the image had been etched in the weak places of his heart
with the keen point of his first grief, and the biting acid of a new
and unnatural hate was eating them deeper day by day. And when, in
spite of himself, his mind dwelt upon her and understood that he was
cursing her who had borne him, he turned back in sheer despair to the
thought of a religious life.
But though it drew him and appealed to all in his nature which had been
uppermost when death had almost tripped him into his grave, it spoke
but half a language now, and was less than half convincing. He could
understand well enough that the monastery might hold the only life for
men who had fought through many failures, from light to darkness, from
happiness to sorrow--men who loved nothing, hoped nothing, hated
nothing any longer, in the great democracy of despair. They sought
peace as the only earthly good they might enjoy, and there was peace in
the cloister. Hope being dead in life, they tasted refreshment in the
hope of a life to come. The convent was good enough for the bankrupt of
love and war. But there must be another rule for those in whom youth
was wounded but not dead, whose hearts were offended but not slain,
whose blood was still strong and hot for good and evil, for men whose
battles were before them still.
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