Commonplace Book

'How could she blaspheme God by craving from Him that one earthly boon which was the sole thing, under the sky or above it either, that seemed to her worth the taking? One face and one form which (wait but a few years at the most) would be resolved into its primal dust; would have to trust to its coffin-plate for the poor satisfaction of being distinguished from the other dust around it; this one face and form, evanescent as the cloud-faces one sees in dreams, filled up so completely the gazing space of her soul's eyes, as to leave no room for the smallest glimpse, the faintest vision of the adamant walls and towers and joy-giving gates of "Jerusalem the golden." One voice, whose tones (let but a few summers roll by) would be as unalterably dumb as the sand-whelmed Sphinx; as forgotten as the sound of last year's showers; this one voice surged and rang in her ears so that not to them could come the weakest echo of

"The shout of them that triumph; the song of them that feast."

from Not Wisely, But Too Well by Rhoda Broughton (Chapter XII)