16661Leaning her bony breast on the hard thorn she crooned outher forgiveness.Sunday May9th3Was it, then, that she had her consolation in moments ofillumination, when with the breeze in the west & theclouds white in the sun she stood at her cottage door;for what reason did there twine about the dirge thisincorrigible hope?, & how why, with no gift tobestow a no gift to take, did she yet desire life, &sing, as she dusted & leered [?]how Were there thenfor Mrs. MacNab, trodden into the mud by civilisation,a mat for kings & kaisers to walk on, moments ofillumination - at thewashtub, say, with her children?(Yet twoof them at had been base-born, & three had'had' was probably meant but 'her' is what is written. [Shillingsburg, P.]deserted her) Some cleavage of the clouds there must havebeen; some channel cut in the heart of obscurity throughwhich issued light enough to make her grin like that - lookingat herself in the long looking glass; & seeing there awisp of with her homy[?]honey or horny [Shillingsburg, P.] forgive, tolerate, understand.The crazed, the mystic, the visionary are possessed atlong intervals of comprehension, & find in themsome absolute good so that a lump of sugar moreor less matters nothing; they are warm in the frost &have comforts in the desert.But Mrs. MacNab wasnot of these.She was not among the haters of life; not among theskeleton lovers; not among those who voluntarily surrendertheir, make abstract, & find in some sreduce th mul the multiplicity of the world tounity & its volume & conflict & anguish to onevoice piping clear & single sweet. Th Thus, when all themysti When the inspired & lofty minded, who had walked on