CHAPTER XVI
HOW IT FARED FURTHER WITH HULDBRAND
Hereupon the story must again have some pause. All men know that sorrow is short-lived. But is it well or ill that it should be so? And by sorrow the writer means the deeper sort–that which springs from the very sources of life, which so unites itself with the lost objects of our love that they are no longer lost, and which consecrates their image as a sacred treasure, until that final bourn be reached which they have gained before us. Should such a sorrow as this be brief? Many men, it is true, preserve these sacred memories, but their feeling is no longer that of the first keen grief. Other new images have thronged between, and we end by learning how all earthly things are transitory, even grief itself. And for this reason must one say: "Alas! that our mourning should be of such short duration!"
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