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Du Maurier, George, 1834-1896

"Peter Ibbetson"


"I have only picked up a few grains of sand on the shore of that sea--a
few little shells, and I can't even show you what they are like. I see
that it is no good even talking of it, alas! And I had promised myself
_so_ much.
"Oh! how my earthly education was neglected, and yours! and how I feel
it now, with so much to say in words, mere words! Why, to tell you in
words the little I can see, the very little--so that you could
understand--would require that each of us should be the greatest poet
and the greatest mathematician that ever were, rolled into one! How I
pity you, Gogo--with your untrained, unskilled, innocent pen, poor
scribe! having to write all this down--for you _must_--and do your poor
little best, as I have done mine in telling you! You must let the heart
speak, and not mind style or manner! Write _any_ how! write for the
greatest need and the greatest number.
"But do just try and see this, dearest, and make the best of it you can:
as far as _I_ can make it out, everything everywhere seems to be an
ever-deepening, ever-broadening stream that makes with inconceivable
velocity for its own proper level, WHERE PERFECTION IS! ... and ever
gets nearer and nearer, and never finds it, and fortunately never will!
"Only that, unlike an earthly stream, and more like a fresh flowing tide
up an endless, boundless, shoreless creek (if you can imagine that), the
level it seeks is immeasurably higher than its source.


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