I know that that will sound a hard saying to very many, for there are
few who have fulfilled these conditions for knowing the best. It must
seem to them that I am practically saying to them, "You can never now
enter into the holy of holies." Yet I cannot alter what I have said,
however acute may be my sympathy with those who have stumbled. I
believe it is true, and no good ever came of hiding the truth. It is
because it is true that I have such confident hope for mankind. Men and
women do in their hearts want the very best, and when they come to know
what are the only terms on which that very best can be had they will, I
believe, accept those terms.
But this would be a cruel book, and a false book too, were I to imply
that there is no way in which the past can be forgotten and forgiven,
and no way into purity and joy even for those who have wandered. Were
that so I could not write at all about this subject, for it would then
be too tragic.
Perhaps the worst consequence of aberrations in thought and conduct is
that they make it very very hard to be perfectly happy and unashamed
when at last love calls them to enter into the inner chambers of
marriage and romance.
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