Philip Van Doren Stern (ed) (185 page)

Was
it
a
wonder
that
I
fled
across
the
fields
fearful
lest
they
might scream
to
me
from
my
soul?
Alas,
it
was
there
they
had
been
betrayed, and
there
were
buried;
wherever
else
their
bones
might
whiten.

And
now
I
began
to
brood
on
them
deeply
and
perpetually,
until nothing
in
the
world
was
so
important
as
they
were,
and
they
became me
almost
in
my
entirety.

I
reconstructed
them
and
myself,
and
the
happy
days
which
had preceded
that
most
wicked
of
hours;
and
I
knew
that,
whatever
other enmity
or
suspicion
had
been
in
the
world,
there
had
been
naught but
friendship
between
us
and
the
frankest
and
freest
trust.
I
had reason
to
trust
them,
and
had
given
them
occasion
to
believe
that in
my
keeping
their
honour
and
their
all
was
safe;
and
to
that
trust I
had
given
the
lie
at
the
moment
of
its
reposal.

Indeed
I
was
stupefied
to
think
that
I
had
committed
this
baseness;
for
on
behalf
of
these
two
I
would
have
counted
on
my
own loyalty
with
as
little
calculation
as
they
had.

There
was
indeed
something
to
be
said
for
me
if
that
enquiry
were rigorously
pursued.
But
it
was
a
poor
thing
and
only
to
be
advanced in
my
favour
for
it
could
not
be
urged.

She
had
halted
between
us
for
a
long
time;
not
balancing
our values
or
possibilities;
but
humanly
unwilling
to
judge,
and
womanly unable
to
wound.
That
delicate
adjustment
could
not
have
continued
indefinitely;
but
it
would
have
continued
longer
had
I
not forced
the
issue,
or
stated
the
position;
and
once
that
a
case
is
truly stated
nothing
remains
but
the
judgment
which
is
already
apparent in
the
statement.

It
was
I
had
failed
in
the
trial.
I
whose
nerves
gave
way.
I
who became
impatient
and
would
gamble
on
the
chance;
and
the
gambler is
always
an
incomplete
man.
In
all
real
things
the
gambler
must lose,
for
he
is
staking
on
chance
that
which
can
only
be
won
by
the knowledge
which
is
concreted
merit;
and
in
all
memorable
deeds
the personality
must
win,
and
chance
have
not
even
the
ghost
of
a
chance.

They
had
bettered
me;
and,
although
they
were
dead
and
I
alive, they
were
beyond
me
and
topped
me
as
a
lion
tops
a
dog.

So,
pride
having
proved
to
me
that
I
was
treacherous,
shame
came to
teach
me
the
great
lesson
of
life;
for
in
humility
the
mind
is released
from
fleshy
fogs
and
vapours;
and
in
that
state
only
can
it be
directed
to
its
single
natural
work,
the
elucidation
of
character.

Ideas
which
enter
the
mind
only
have
no
motive
force—they
are alive,
but
have
not
yet
energy.
They
exist
but
as
subjects
of
conversation,
as
intellectual
gossip,
but
before
a
thought
can
become
an
act it
must
sink
deeper
than
the
mind
and
into
the
imagination
where abides
the
true
energy
of
all
thinking
creatures.
It
is
not
the
mind but
the
imagination
that
sets
the
will
to
work;
and
both
mind
and will
obey
it
instantly,
as
a
horse
winces
instantly
to
the
touch
of
a spur.