Many
poor men are more devoted worshippers of Mammon than some rich men."
And then I took her home.
CHAPTER IV.
THE EVENING AT THE CURATE'S.
As I led Adela, well wrapped in furs, down the steps to put her into the
carriage, I felt by the wind, and saw by the sky, that a snowstorm was
at hand. This set my heart beating with delight, for after all I am only
what my friends call me--an old boy; and so I am still very fond of snow
and wind. Of course this pleasure is often modified by the recollection
that it is to most people no pleasure, and to some a source of great
suffering. But then I recover myself by thinking, that I did not send
for the snow, and that my enjoyment of it will neither increase their
pains nor lessen my sympathies. And so I enjoy it again with all my
heart. It is partly the sense of being lapt in a mysterious fluctuating
depth of exquisite shapes of evanescent matter, falling like a cataract
from an unknown airy gulf, where they grow into being and form out of
the invisible--well-named by the prophet Job--for a prophet he was in
the truest sense, all-seated in his ashes and armed with his
potsherd--the womb of the snow; partly the sense of motion and the
goings of the wind through the etherial mass; partly the delight that
always comes from contest with nature, a contest in which no vile
passions are aroused, and no weak enemy goes helpless to the ground.
Pages:
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110