Castle Warlock Author:George MacDonald Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. AN INTERLUNAR CAVE. And so the moon died out of Cosmo's heaven. But it was only the moon. The sun remained to him—his father—visible type of t... more »he great sun, whose light is too keen for souls, and heart and spirit only can bear. But when he had received Joan's last smile, when she turned away her face, and the Ungenial, who had spoiled everything at Glenwarlock, carried her with him, then indeed for a moment a great cloud came over the light of his life, and he sought where to hide his tears. It was a sickening time. Suddenly she had come, suddenly entered his heart, and suddenly departed ! But such things are only clouds, and cannot but pass. Ah, reader, whose cloud has notyet passed! do you scorn to hear it called cloud, priding yourself that your trouble is eternal ? Just because you are eternal, your trouble cannot be. You may cling to it, and brood upon it, but you cannot keep it from either blossoming into a bliss, or crumbling into dust. Be such while it lasts, that, when it passes, it shall leave you loving more, not less. There was this difference between Cosmo and most young men of clay finer than ordinary: after the first few moments of the seemingly unendurable, he did not wander about moody, nursing his sorrow, and making everybody uncomfortable because he was uncomfortable; he sought at once the presence of his father, and of Mr. Simon. From the latter he had been much separated while lady Joan was at the castle, for such a visit was an opportunity for him precious in the eyes of the laird. With the loving insight of a true father, he perceived what the society of the girl would do for his boy—how it would at once soften and ripen and shape him, andreveal him to himself. And two days had not passed before he was aware of a gentling and clearing...« less