But next day, Want came to me pale and bare. Long after the little

birds had left their nests; long after bees had come in the sweet

prime of day to gather the heath honey before the dew was dried--

when the long morning shadows were curtailed, and the sun filled

earth and sky--I got up, and I looked round me.

What a still, hot, perfect day! What a golden desert this spreading

moor! Everywhere sunshine. I wished I could live in it and on it.

I saw a lizard run over the crag; I saw a bee busy among the sweet

bilberries. I would fain at the moment have become bee or lizard,

that I might have found fitting nutriment, permanent shelter here.

But I was a human being, and had a human being's wants: I must not

linger where there was nothing to supply them. I rose; I looked

back at the bed I had left. Hopeless of the future, I wished but

this--that my Maker had that night thought good to require my soul

of me while I slept; and that this weary frame, absolved by death

from further conflict with fate, had now but to decay quietly, and

mingle in peace with the soil of this wilderness. Life, however,

was yet in my possession, with all its requirements, and pains, and

responsibilities. The burden must be carried; the want provided

for; the suffering endured; the responsibility fulfilled. I set

out.

Whitcross regained, I followed a road which led from the sun, now

fervent and high. By no other circumstance had I will to decide my

choice. I walked a long time, and when I thought I had nearly done

enough, and might conscientiously yield to the fatigue that almost

overpowered me--might relax this forced action, and, sitting down on

a stone I saw near, submit resistlessly to the apathy that clogged

heart and limb--I heard a bell chime--a church bell.

I turned in the direction of the sound, and there, amongst the

romantic hills, whose changes and aspect I had ceased to note an

hour ago, I saw a hamlet and a spire. All the valley at my right

hand was full of pasture-fields, and cornfields, and wood; and a

glittering stream ran zig-zag through the varied shades of green,

the mellowing grain, the sombre woodland, the clear and sunny lea.

Recalled by the rumbling of wheels to the road before me, I saw a

heavily-laden waggon labouring up the hill, and not far beyond were

two cows and their drover. Human life and human labour were near.

I must struggle on: strive to live and bend to toil like the rest.




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