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006 - The Broken Swords Part 1 · Six Stories

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  Speaker 1: Section six of six stories by George mac donald. This
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  Speaker 1: is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the
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  Speaker 1: public domain. For more information, ought to volunteer, please visit
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  Speaker 1: LibriVox dot org. Recording by Alice and Waldas Section six
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  Speaker 1: The Broken Swords, Part one. The eyes of three, two
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  Speaker 1: sisters and a brother gazed for the last time on
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  Speaker 1: a great, pale, golden star that followed the sun down
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  Speaker 1: the steep west. It went down to arise again, and
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  Speaker 1: the brother about to depart might return. But more than
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  Speaker 1: the usual doubt hung upon his future. For between the
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  Speaker 1: white dresses of the sisters shone his scarlet coat and
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  Speaker 1: golden sword knot, which he had put on for the
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  Speaker 1: first time, more to gratify their pride than his own vanners.
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  Speaker 1: The brightening moon, as if prophetic of her future memory,
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  Speaker 1: had already begun to dim the scarlet in the gold,
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  Speaker 1: and to give them a pale, ghostly hue in her
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  Speaker 1: thoughtful light. The whole group seemed more like a meeting
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  Speaker 1: in the land of shadows than a parting in the
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  Speaker 1: substantial earth, but which should be called the land of realities,
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  Speaker 1: the region where appearance and space and time drive between
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  Speaker 1: and stop the flowing currents of the soul's speech, or
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  Speaker 1: that region where heart meets heart and appearance has become
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  Speaker 1: the slave to utterance, and space and time are forgotten.
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  Speaker 1: Through the quiet air came the far off rush of water,
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  Speaker 1: and the near cry of the land rail. Now and
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  Speaker 1: then a chilly wind blew unheeded through the startled and
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  Speaker 1: jostling leaves that shaded the ivy seat. Else there was
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  Speaker 1: calm everywhere, rendered yet deeper and more intense by the
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  Speaker 1: dusky sorrow that filled their hearts. Far away, hundreds of
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  Speaker 1: miles beyond the hearing of their ears, roared the great
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  Speaker 1: war guns. Next week their brother must sail with his
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  Speaker 1: regiment to join the army, and to morrow he must
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  Speaker 1: leave his home. The sisters looked on him tenderly, with
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  Speaker 1: vague fears about his fate. Yet little they divined it
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  Speaker 1: that the face they loved might lie pale and bloody
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  Speaker 1: in a heap of slain was the worst image of
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  Speaker 1: it that arose before them. But this, had they seen
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  Speaker 1: the future, they would, in ignorance of the further future,
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  Speaker 1: have infinitely preferred to that which awaited him. And even
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  Speaker 1: while they looked on him, a dim feeling of the
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  Speaker 1: unsuitableness of his lot filled their minds. For indeed, to
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  Speaker 1: all judgments, it must have seemed unsuitable that the home boy,
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  Speaker 1: the loved of his mother, the pet of his sister,
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  Speaker 1: who was happy womanlike, as Coleridge says, if he possessed
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  Speaker 1: the signs of love, having never yet sought for its proofs,
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  Speaker 1: that he should be sent amongst so to command, and
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  Speaker 1: be commanded to kill, or perhaps to be himself crushed
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  Speaker 1: out of the fair earth and the uproar that brings
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  Speaker 1: back for the moment the rain of night and chaos.
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  Speaker 1: No wonder that to his sisters it seemed strange and sad.
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  Speaker 1: Yet such was their own position in the battle of life,
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  Speaker 1: in which their father had died with doubtful conquest, that
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  Speaker 1: when their old military uncle sent the boy in science commission,
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  Speaker 1: they did not dream of refusing the only path open,
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  Speaker 1: as they thought to an honorable profession, even though it
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  Speaker 1: might lead to the trench grave. They heard it as
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  Speaker 1: the voice of destiny wept and yielded. If they had
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  Speaker 1: possessed a deeper insight into his character, they would have
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  Speaker 1: discovered yet further reason to doubt the fitness of the
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  Speaker 1: profession chosen for him, and if they had ever seen
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  Speaker 1: him at school, it is possible the doubt of fitness
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  Speaker 1: might have strengthened into a certainty of incongruity. His comparative
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  Speaker 1: inactivity amongst his school fellows, though occasioned by no dulness
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  Speaker 1: of intellect, might have suggested the necessity of a quiet
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  Speaker 1: life if inclination and liking had been the arbiters in
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  Speaker 1: the choice. Nor was this inactivity the result of defective
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  Speaker 1: animal spirits either, for sometimes his mirth and boyish frolic
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  Speaker 1: were unbounded, but it seemed to proceed from an over
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  Speaker 1: activity of the inward life, absorbing and in some measure
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  Speaker 1: checking the outward manifestation. He had so much to do
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  Speaker 1: in his own hidden kingdom that he had not time
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  Speaker 1: to take his place in the polity and strife the
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  Speaker 1: commonwealth around him. Hence, while other boys were acting, he
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  Speaker 1: was thinking. In this point of difference, he felt keenly
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  Speaker 1: the superiority of many of his companions, for another boy
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  Speaker 1: would have the obstacle overcome or the adversary subdued. While
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  Speaker 1: he was meditating on the propriety or on the means
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  Speaker 1: of affecting the desired end. He envied their promptitude, while
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  Speaker 1: they never saw reason to envy his wisdom, for his conscience,
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  Speaker 1: tender and not strong, frequently transformed slowness of determination into irresolution,
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  Speaker 1: while a delicacy of the sympathetic nerves tended to distract
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  Speaker 1: him from any predetermined course. By the diversity of their vibrations,
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  Speaker 1: responsive to influences from all quarters, and destructive to unity
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  Speaker 1: of purpose. Of such a one, the our priori judgment
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  Speaker 1: would be that he ought to be left to meditate
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  Speaker 1: and grow for some time before being called upon to
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  Speaker 1: produce the fruits of action. But add to these mental
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  Speaker 1: conditions of vivid imagination and a high sense of honor
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  Speaker 1: nourished in childhood by the reading of the old knightly romances,
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  Speaker 1: and then put the youth in a position in which
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  Speaker 1: action is imperative, and you have elements of strife sufficient
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  Speaker 1: to reduce that fair kingdom of his to utter anarchy
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  Speaker 1: and madness. Yet so little do we know ourselves, and
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  Speaker 1: so different are the symbols with which the imagination works
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  Speaker 1: its algebra from the realities which those symbols represent, that
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  Speaker 1: as yet the youth felt no uneasiness, but contemplated his
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  Speaker 1: new calling with a glad, enthusiasm, and some vanity, for
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  Speaker 1: all his prospect lay in the glow of the scarlet
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  Speaker 1: and the gold. Nor did this excitement receive any check
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  Speaker 1: till the day before his departure, on which day I
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  Speaker 1: have introduced him to my readers. When accidentally taking up
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  Speaker 1: a newspaper of a week old, his eye fell on
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  Speaker 1: these words. Already crying women are to be met in
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  Speaker 1: the streets. With this cloud afar on his horizon, which
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  Speaker 1: no bigger than a man's hand, yet cast a perceptible
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  Speaker 1: shadow over his mind. He departed next morning. The coach
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  Speaker 1: carried him beyond the consecrated circle of home laws, and
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  Speaker 1: impulses out into the great tumult, above which rises ever
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  Speaker 1: and anon, the cry of Cain am I my Brother's keeper.
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  Speaker 1: Every tragedy of higher order constructed in Christian times will
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  Speaker 1: correspond more or less to the grand drama of the Bible,
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  Speaker 1: wherein the first act open so the brilliant sunset vs
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  Speaker 1: of Paradise, in which childish sense and need are served
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  Speaker 1: with all the profusion of the indulgent nurse. But the
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  Speaker 1: glory fades off into gray and black, and night settles
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  Speaker 1: down upon the heart, which rightly uncontent with the childish,
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  Speaker 1: and not having yet learned, the childlike seeks knowledge in
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  Speaker 1: manhood as a thing denied by the Maker and yet
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  Speaker 1: to be gained by the creature. So sets forth alone
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  Speaker 1: to climb the heavens, and instead of climbing, falls into
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  Speaker 1: the abyss. Then follows the long dismal night of feverish
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  Speaker 1: efforts and delirious visions, or it may be helpless despair,
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  Speaker 1: till at length a deeper stratum of the soul is
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  Speaker 1: heaved to the surface, And amid the first dawn of morning,
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  Speaker 1: the youth says within him, I have sinned against my Maker.
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  Speaker 1: I will arise and go to my father. More or less,
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  Speaker 1: I say, will Christian tragedy correspond to this? A fall
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  Speaker 1: and a rising again, not arising only, but a victory.
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  Speaker 1: Not a victory, but a triumph. Such in its way
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  Speaker 1: and degree is my story. I have shown in one
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  Speaker 1: passing scene the home paradise. Now I have to show
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  Speaker 1: a scene of far differing nature. The young ensign was
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  Speaker 1: lying in his tent, weary but wakeful. All day long.
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  Speaker 1: The cannon had been bellowing against the walls of the city,
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  Speaker 1: which now lay with wide, gaping breech, ready for the
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  Speaker 1: morrow's storm, but covered yet with the friendly darkness. His
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  Speaker 1: regiment was ordered to be ready with the earliest dawn
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  Speaker 1: to march up to the breach. That day. For the
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  Speaker 1: first time, there had been blood on his sword. There
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  Speaker 1: the sword lay a spot on the chased hilt sword
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  Speaker 1: he had cut down one of the enemy in a
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  Speaker 1: skirmish with a sally party of the besieged, and the
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  Speaker 1: look of the man as he fell haunted him. He
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  Speaker 1: felt for the time that he dared not pray to
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  Speaker 1: the Father, for the blood of a brother had rushed
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  Speaker 1: forth at the stroke of his arm, and there was
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  Speaker 1: one were of living souls on the earth because he
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  Speaker 1: lived thereon. And to morrow he must lead a troop
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  Speaker 1: of men up to that poor, disabled town and turn
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  Speaker 1: them loose upon it, not knowing what might follow in
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  Speaker 1: the triumph of enraged and victorious foes, who for weeks
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  Speaker 1: had been subjected by the constancy of the place to
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  Speaker 1: the greatest privations. It was true the general had issued
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  Speaker 1: his commands against all disorder and pillage, But if the
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  Speaker 1: soldiers once yielded to temptation, what might not be done
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  Speaker 1: before the officers could reclaim them. All the wretched tales
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  Speaker 1: he had read of the sack of cities rushed back
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  Speaker 1: on his memory. He shuddered as he lay. Then his
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  Speaker 1: conscience began to speak and to ask what right he
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  Speaker 1: had to be? There was the war a just one,
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  Speaker 1: he could not tell, But this was a bad time
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  Speaker 1: for settling nice questions. And there he was right or wrong,
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  Speaker 1: fighting and shedding blood on God's earth, beneath God's heaven.
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  Speaker 1: Over and over he turned the question in his mind
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  Speaker 1: again and again. The spouting blood of his foe and
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  Speaker 1: the death look in his eye rose before him. And
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  Speaker 1: the youth who at school could never fight with a
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  Speaker 1: companion because he was not sure that he was in
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  Speaker 1: the right, was alone in the midst of undoubting men
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  Speaker 1: of war, amongst whom he was driven helplessly along upon
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  Speaker 1: the waves of a terrible necessity. What wonder that, in
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  Speaker 1: the midst of these perplexities his courage should fail him?
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  Speaker 1: What wonder that the consciousness of fainting should increase the faintness,
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  Speaker 1: or that the dread of fear in its consequences should
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  Speaker 1: hasten and invigorate its attacks to crown all. When he
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  Speaker 1: dropped into a troubled slumber. At length he found himself
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  Speaker 1: hurried as on a storm of fire, through the streets
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  Speaker 1: of the captured town, from all the windows of which
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  Speaker 1: looked forth familiar faces, old and young, but distorted from
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  Speaker 1: the memory of his boyhood by fear and wild despair.
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  Speaker 1: On one spot lay the body of his father, with
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  Speaker 1: his face to the earth, and he woke at the
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  Speaker 1: cry of horror, in rage that burst from his own lips.
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  Speaker 1: As he saw the rough, bloody hand of a soldier
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  Speaker 1: twisted in the loose hair of his elder sister, and
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  Speaker 1: the younger fainting in the arms of a scoundrel belonging
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  Speaker 1: to his own regiment. He slept no more. As the
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  Speaker 1: gray morning broke, the troops appointed for the attack assembled
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  Speaker 1: without sound of trumpet or drum, and were silently formed
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  Speaker 1: in fitting order. The young ensign was in his place,
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  Speaker 1: weary and wretched after his miserable night. Before him he
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  Speaker 1: saw a great, broad shouldered lieutenant, whose brawny hand seemed
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  Speaker 1: almost too large for his sword hilt, and in any
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  Speaker 1: one of whose limbs played more animal life than in
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  Speaker 1: the whole body of the pale youth. The firm set
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  Speaker 1: lips of this officer, and the fire of his eye
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  Speaker 1: showed a concentrated resolution, which, by the contrast, increased the
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  Speaker 1: misery of the ensign, and seemed as if the stronger
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  Speaker 1: absorbed the weaker, to draw out from him the last
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  Speaker 1: fibers of self possession. The sight of unattainable determination, while
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  Speaker 1: it increased the feeling of the arduousness of that which
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  Speaker 1: required such determination, threw him into the great gulf which
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  Speaker 1: lay between him and it. In this disorder of his
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  Speaker 1: nervous and mental condition, with a doubting conscience and a
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  Speaker 1: shrinking heart, is it any wonder that the terrors which
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  Speaker 1: lay before him at the gap in those bristling walls
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  Speaker 1: should draw near, and, making sudden inroad upon his soul,
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  Speaker 1: overwhelm the government of a will worn out by the
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  Speaker 1: tortures of an unassured spirit. What share fear contributed to
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  Speaker 1: unman him? It was impossible for him, in the dark,
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  Speaker 1: confused conflict of differing emotions to determine, but doubtless and
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  Speaker 1: natural shrinking from danger, there being no excitement to deaden
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  Speaker 1: its influence, and no hope of victory to encourage to
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  Speaker 1: the struggle. Seeing victory was dreadful to him, as defeat
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  Speaker 1: had its part in the sad result. Many men who
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  Speaker 1: have courage are dependent on ignorance and a state of
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  Speaker 1: the moral feeling for that courage, and a further progress
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  Speaker 1: towards the development of the higher nature, would for a
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  Speaker 1: time at least entirely overthrow it. Nor could such loss
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  Speaker 1: of courage be rightly designated by the name of cowardice.
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  Speaker 1: But alas the colonel happened to fix his eyes upon
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  Speaker 1: him as he passed along the file, and this completed
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  Speaker 1: his confusion, he betrayed such evident symptoms of perturbation that
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  Speaker 1: the officer ordered him under arrest, And the result was that,
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  Speaker 1: chiefly for the sake of example to the army, he was,
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  Speaker 1: upon trial by court martial, expelled from the service, and
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  Speaker 1: had his sword broken over his head, A lass for
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  Speaker 1: the delicate minded youth, a las for the home darling.
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  Speaker 1: Long after, he found at the bottom of his chest
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  Speaker 1: the pieces of the broken sword, and remembered that at
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  Speaker 1: the time he had lifted them from the ground and
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  Speaker 1: carried them away, But he could not recall under what
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  Speaker 1: impulse he had done. So, perhaps the agony he suffered
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  Speaker 1: passing the bounds of mortal endurance had opened for him
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  Speaker 1: a vista into the eternal, and had shown him, if
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  Speaker 1: not the injustice of the sentence passed upon him, yet
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  Speaker 1: his freedom from blame or endowing him with dim prophetic vision,
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  Speaker 1: had given him the assurance that some day the stain
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  Speaker 1: would be wiped from his soul and leave him standing
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  Speaker 1: clear before the tribunal of his own honor. Some feeling
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  Speaker 1: like this, I say, may have caused him, with a
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  Speaker 1: passing gleam of indignant protest, to lift the fragments from
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  Speaker 1: the earth and carry them away, even as the friends
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  Speaker 1: of a so called traitor may bear away his mutilated
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  Speaker 1: body from the wheel. But if such was the case,
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  Speaker 1: the vision was soon overwhelmed and forgotten. In the succeeding anguish,
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  Speaker 1: he could not see that in mercy to his doubting spirit,
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  Speaker 1: the question which had agitated his mind almost to madness,
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  Speaker 1: and which no results of the impending conflict could have
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  Speaker 1: settled for him, was thus quietly set aside for the time.
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  Speaker 1: Nor that painful, as was the dark, dreadful existence that
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  Speaker 1: he was now to pass in self torment and moaning,
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  Speaker 1: it would go by and leave his spirit clearer far
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  Speaker 1: than if in his apprehension it had been stained with
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  Speaker 1: further blood guiltiness instead of the loss of honor. Years after,
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  Speaker 1: when he accidentally learned that, on the very morning, the
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  Speaker 1: whole of his company, with parts of several more, had
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  Speaker 1: or ever they began to mount the breach, been blown
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  Speaker 1: to pieces by the explosion of a mine. He cried
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  Speaker 1: aloud in bitterness. Would God that my fear had not
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  Speaker 1: been discovered before I reached that spot. But surely it
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  Speaker 1: is better to pass into the next region of life
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  Speaker 1: having reached some assurance, some firmness of character, determination of effort,
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  Speaker 1: and consciousness of the worth of life in the present world,
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  Speaker 1: so approaching the future steadily and faithfully, and if in
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  Speaker 1: much darkness and ignorance, yet not in the oscillations of
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  Speaker 1: moral uncertainty. Close upon the catastrophe followed a torphau, which
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  Speaker 1: lasted he did not know how long, and which wrapped
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  Speaker 1: in a thick fog all the succeeding events for some time.
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  Speaker 1: He can hardly be said to have had any conscious history.
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  Speaker 1: He awoke to life and torture when half way across
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  Speaker 1: the sea towards his native country, where was no home
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  Speaker 1: any longer for him to this point, and no farther
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  Speaker 1: could his thoughts return in after years. But the misery
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  Speaker 1: which he then endured is hardly to be understood save
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  Speaker 1: by those of like delicate temperament. With himself, all day
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  Speaker 1: long he sat silent in his cabin, nor could any
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  Speaker 1: effort of the captain or others on board induce him
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  Speaker 1: to go on deck till night came on, when under
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  Speaker 1: the starlight he ventured into the open air. The sky
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  Speaker 1: soothed him. Then he knew not how, for the face
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  Speaker 1: of nature is the face of God, and must bear
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  Speaker 1: expressions that can influence, though unconsciously to them the most
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  Speaker 1: ignorant and hopeless of his children. Often did he watch
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  Speaker 1: the clouds in hope of a storm, his spirit rising
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  Speaker 1: and falling as the sky darkened or cleared. He longed,
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  Speaker 1: in the necessary selfishness of such suffering, for a tumult
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  Speaker 1: of waters to swallow the vessel. And only the recollection
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  Speaker 1: of how many lives were involved in its safety besides
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  Speaker 1: his own, prevented him from praying to God for lightning
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  Speaker 1: and tempest born on which he might dash into the
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  Speaker 1: haven of the other world. One night following a sultry,
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  Speaker 1: calm day, he thought that mercy had heard his unuttered prayer.
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  Speaker 1: The air and sea were intense darkness till a light
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  Speaker 1: is intense. For one moment annihilated it, and the succeeding
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  Speaker 1: darkness seemed shattered with the sharp reports of the thunder
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  Speaker 1: that cracked without reverberation. He who had shrunk from battle
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  Speaker 1: with his fellow men, rushed to the mainmast, threw himself
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  Speaker 1: on his knees, and stretched forth his arms in speechless
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  Speaker 1: energy of supperation. But the storm passed away overhead and
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  Speaker 1: left him kneeling still by the uninjured mast. At length,
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  Speaker 1: the vessel reached her port. He hurried on shore to
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  Speaker 1: bury himself in the most secret place he could find.
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  Speaker 1: Out of sight was his first His only thought returned
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  Speaker 1: to his mother. He would not, he could not, And
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  Speaker 1: indeed his friends never learned his fate until it had
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  Speaker 1: carried him far beyond their reach. For several weeks he
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  Speaker 1: lurked about like a malefactor, in low lodging houses in
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  Speaker 1: narrow streets of the sea port to which the vessel
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  Speaker 1: had borne him, heeding no one, and but little shocked
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  Speaker 1: at the strange society and conversation with which, though only
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  Speaker 1: in bodily presence, he had to mingle. These formed the
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  Speaker 1: subjects of reflection in after times, and he came to
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  Speaker 1: the conclusion that though much evil and much misery exist
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  Speaker 1: sufficient to move prayers and tears in those who love
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  Speaker 1: their kind, yet there is less of both than those
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  Speaker 1: looking down from a more elevated social position upon the
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  Speaker 1: weltering heap of humanity, are ready to imagine, especially if
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  Speaker 1: they regard it likewise from the pedestal of self congratulation
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  Speaker 1: on which a meager type of religion has elevated them.
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  Speaker 1: But at length, his little stock of money was merely expended,
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  Speaker 1: and there was nothing that he could do or learn
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  Speaker 1: to do in this seaport. He felt impelled to seek
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  Speaker 1: manual labor, partly because he thought it more likely he
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  Speaker 1: could obtain that sort of employment without a request for
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  Speaker 1: a reference as to his character, which would lead to
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  Speaker 1: inquiry about his previous history, and partly, perhaps from an
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: instinctive feeling that a hard, bodily labor would tend to
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: lessen his inward suffering. He left the town therefore at
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: nightfall of a July day, carrying a little bundle of
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: linen and the remains of his money, somewhat augmented by
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: the sale of various articles of clothing and convenience, which
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: his change of life rendered superfluous and unsuitable. He directed
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: his course northwards, traveling principally by night. So painfully did
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: he shrink from the gaze even of foot farers like himself,
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: and sleeping during the day in some hidden look of
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: wood or thicket, or under the shadow of a great
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: tree in a solitary field. So fine was the season
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: that for three successive weeks he was able to travel
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: thus without inconvenience, lying down when the sun grew hot
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: in the forenoon, and generally waking when the first faint
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: stars were hesitating in the great darkening heavens that covered
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: and shielded him. For above every cloud, above every storm,
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: rise up, calm, clear, divine the deep, infinite skies. They
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: embrace the tempest even as the sunshine, by their permission.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: It exists within their boundless peace. Therefore it can not
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: hurt and must pass away, while there they stand as ever,
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: domed up eternally, lasting, strong and pure earth. Several times
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: he attempted to get agricultural employment, but the whiteness of
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: his hands and the tone of his voice not merely
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: suggested unfitness for labor, but generated suspicion as to the
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: character of one who had evidently dropped from a rank
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: so much higher, and was seeking admittance within the natural
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: Masonic boundaries and secrets and privileges of another. Disheartened somewhat
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: but hopeful, he journeyed on, I say, hopeful for the
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: blessed power of life in the universe, in fresh air
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: and sunshine, absorbed by active exercise in winds yea in rain,
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: though it fell, but seldom had begun to work its
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: natural healing soothing effect upon his perturbed spirit, and there
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: was room for hope in his new endeavor. As his
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: bodily strength increased, and his health, considerably impaired by inward suffering, improved,
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: the trouble of his soul became more endurable and in
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: some measure to endure as to conquer, And in proportion,
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: as the mind grows in the strength of patience, the
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: disturber of its peace sickens and fades away. At length.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: One day, a widow lady in a village through which
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: his road led him gave him a day's work in
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: her garden. He labored hard and well notwithstanding his soon
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: blistered hands, received his wages thankfully, and found a resting
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: place for the night on the low part of a
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: haystack from which the upper portion had been cut away.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: Here he ate his supper of bread and cheese, pleased
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: to have found such comfortable quarters, and soon fell fast asleep.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: When he awoke, the whole heavens and earth seemed to
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: give a full denial to sin and sorrow. The sun
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: was just mounting over the horizon. Looking up the clear
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: cloud mottled sky from millions of water drops hanging on
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: the bending stalks of grass, sparkled his rays and varied
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: for refraction, transformed here to a gorgeous burning ruby, there
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: to an emerald green as the grass, and yonder to
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: a flashing sunny topaz. The chanting priest Lark had gone
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: up from the low earth as soon as the heavenly
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: light had begun to enwrap any lumine the folds of
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: its tabernacle, and had entered the high heavens with his offering.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: Whence unseen, he now dropped on the earth the sprinkled
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: sounds of his overflowing blessedness. The poor youth rose but
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: to kneel and cry from a bursting heart. Hast thou not, o, Father,
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: some care for me? Canst thou not restore my lost honor?
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: Can anything befall thy children? For which thou hast no help? Surely,
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: if the face of thy world lie not joy and
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: not grief is at the heart of the universe, is
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: there none for me? The highest poetic feeling of which
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: we are now conscious, springs not from the beholding of
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: perfected beauty, but from the mute sympathy which the creation,
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: with all its chill and manifests within us, in the
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: groaning and travailing, which look for the sonship. Because of
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: our need and aspiration, the snowdrop gives birth in our
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: hearts to a loftier spiritual and poetic feeling than the rose,
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: most complete in form, color, and odour. The rose is
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: of paradise. The snowdrop is of the striving, hoping, longing earth.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: Perhaps our highest poetry is the expression of our aspirations
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: and the sympathetic forms of visible nature. Nor is this
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: merely a longing for a restored paradise. For even in
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: the ordinary history of men, no man or woman that
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: has fallen can be restored to the position formerly held,
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: such must rise to a yet higher place, whence they
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: can behold their former standing far beneath their feet. They
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: must be restored by the attainment of something better than
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: they ever possessed before, or not at all. If the
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: law be a weariness, we must escape it by taking
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: refuge with the spirit. For not otherwise can we fulfill
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: the law than by being above the law. To escape
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: the overhanging rocks of Sinai, we must climb to its secret.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: Dop is thy straight horizon. Dreary is thy foolish fancy.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: Chill change the feet that have grown weary for the
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: wings that never will. Thus, like one of the wandering
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: knights searching the wide earth for the sangreal, did he
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: wander on searching for his lost honor, Or rather for
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: that he counted gone forever, seeking unconsciously for the peace
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: of mind which had departed from him, and taken with
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: it not the joy merely, but almost the possibility of existence.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: At last, when his little store was all but exhausted,
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: he was employed by a market gardener in the neighborhood
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: of a large country town to work in his garden
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: and sometimes take his vegetables to market with him. He
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: continued for a few weeks and wished for no change,
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: until one day, driving his cart through the town, he
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: saw approaching him an elderly gentleman, whom he knew at
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: once by his gait and carriage to be a military man.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: Now he had never seen his uncle, the retired officer,
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: but it struck him that this might be he, and
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: under the tyranny of his passion for concealment, he fancied
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: that if it were he, he might recognize him by
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: some family likeness, not considering the improbability of his looking
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: at him. This fancy with a painful effect which the
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: sight of an officer, even in plain clothes, had upon him,
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: Recalling the torture of that frightful day, So overcame him
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: that he found himself at the other end of an
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: alley before he recollected that he had the horse and
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: guard in charge. This increased his difficulty, for now he
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: dared not return, lest his inquiries after the vehicle, if
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: the horse had strayed from the direct line, should attract
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: attention and cause interrogations which he would be unable to answer.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: The fatal want of self possession seemed again to ruin him.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: He forsook the town by the nearest way, struck across
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: the country to another line of road, and before he
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: was missed, was miles away, still in an northerly direction.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: But although he thus shunned the face of man, especially
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: of any one who reminded him of the past, the
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: loss of his reputation in their eyes was not the
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: cause of his inward grief. That would have been comparatively
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: powerless to disturb him had he not lost his own respect.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: He quailed before his own thoughts. He was dishonored in
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: his own eyes. His perplexity had not yet sufficiently cleared
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: away to allow him to see the extenuating circumstances of
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: the case, nor to say the fact that the peculiar
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: mental condition in which he was at the time removed
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: the case quite out of the class of ordinary instances
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: of cowardice. He condemned himself more severely than any of
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: his judges would have done. Remembering that portion of his
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: mental sensations which had savored of fear, and forgetting the
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: causes which had produced it, he judged himself a man
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: stained with the foulest blot that could cleave to a
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: soldier's name, a blot which nothing but death, not even death,
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: could efface. But inwardly condemned and outwardly degraded. His dread
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: of recognition was intense, and, feeling that he was in
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: more danger of being discovered whether population was sparser, he
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: resolved to hide himself once more in the midst of poverty,
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: and with this view found his way to one of
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: the largest of the manufacturing towns end of Section six.