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Heavenly Kingdoms - Chapter 2
Letter 4 – From Anne Charlston to Margaret Playford, 23rd of May, 1856.

Dear Maggie,

Gracious! How long has it been since I wrote. You must think me an eremitic. I confess it was not through familiar recollection that it occurs to me now to write but rather a chance encounter with your cousin Caroline in D____ that appears to have spurred recognition of my neglect of you, my dearest friend. You know we are always honest with one another so hear my confession and forgive a distracted soul for the sin of forgetfulness. I have little of purpose to relate but simply long for your company - if not possible in person, then through these sporadic letters - as so isolated have I been and always cherish your bright heart in spiriting away my darkest humours.
As for Caroline and I, we were both separately in town, by chance at the same time, to witness the extraordinary painting by master Laurent, a true Apelles of our age, which has burned into my memory so great an impression that even now, several days past, I am still haunted by the verisimilitude of its depiction. Indeed it appeared more real than life; one has the sense of wishing to be absorbed into the canvas and to take part in that other world where virtues are made manifest through colour, and good and evil are so easily deduced; rather than in our existence where all manner of wickedness falls unnoticed around us and our very neighbours, although pictures of humanity and grace externally (most of them; the Belview’s - God forgive me - not withstanding) within may harbour any sin imaginable which the solidarity of family unity prevents from airing to strangers and to God.
The painting depicted the thunderstruck countenances of those sailors, who, returning to the court of Periander were subject to the revelation of Arion’s survival from their murderous betrayal. It is the strangest thing, the face of man who has been found out in a lie; it is as if the fabric of reality has been torn and beneath is revealed a kind of hell, but, as the reality was disingenuous, the hell we see is one that must be borne and is ultimately for the better, making us purer and cleaner through the hardship of enduring its horror. As for Arion, he gazed upon them with a form contempt; an eye of righteousness that knows its vengeance is nigh at hand. Although it brings much satisfaction to see it, and I personally revelled in it, it is surely wrong to hold our enemies in such contempt however righteous our cause; but such may one think who has not endured the wrong that justifies retaliation.
Caroline is well, if you have not heard from her in some time. You know her and I do not get along entirely well but given this was my first outing for the business of pleasure in quite some time I found solace in her prickly demeanour, as any disagreeableness is warmly comical when compared to that of my father’s, where it achieves apotheosis. As you know, of late I have been in attendance of his person, trying to nurse him back to...