He
would have admitted, however, that he found quiet, for the soul as
well as the body, upon this edge of the world, this brink of the
gulf that swallowed the ever-pouring ever-vanishing Niagara of human
life. On the stone he now seated himself and fell a-musing.
What a change had come upon him--slow, indeed, yet how vast, since
the night when he sat in the same churchyard indignant and uneasy
with the words of Bascombe like hot coals in his heart! He had been
made ashamed of himself who had never thought much of himself, but
the more he had lost of worthiness in his own eyes the more he had
gained in worth. And the more his poor satisfaction with himself had
died out, the more the world had awaked around him. For it must be
remembered that a little conceit is no more to be endured than a
great one, but must be swept utterly away. Sky and wind and water
and birds and trees said to him, "Forget thyself and we will think
of thee. Sing no more to thyself thy foolish songs of decay, and we
will all sing to thee of love and hope and faith and resurrection."
Earth and air had grown full of hints and sparkles and vital
motions, as if between them and his soul an abiding community of
fundamental existence had manifested itself.
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