I always hoped that, as time went on, and he
saw how absolutely devoted to him I was, and what unbounded
confidence I had in him, and how I forgave him over and over again
for treatment which I would not have stood for a moment from any
one else--I always hoped that he would soften and deal as frankly
and unreservedly with me as I with him; but, though for some fifteen
years I hoped this, in the end I gave it up, and settled down into a
resolve from which I never departed--to do all I could for him, to
avoid friction of every kind, and to make the best of things for him
and myself that circumstances would allow.'
In love such as this there is a feminine tenderness and devotion which
positively illuminates what otherwise appears to be a streak of
perversity in Butler; and the illumination becomes still more certain
when we read Butler's letters to the young Swiss, Hans Faesch, to whom
_Out into the Night_ was written. Faesch had departed for Singapore.
'The sooner we all of us,' wrote Butler, 'as men of sense and sober
reason, get through the very acute, poignant sorrow which we now
feel, the better for us all.
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