Cowper put the case against all "fearful saints"
(and sinners) when he said:
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy, and will break
With blessings on your head.
It is the clouds you don't dread that swamp you. Cowper knew, for he too
was an apprehensive mortal, and it is only the apprehensive mortal who
really knows the full folly of his apprehensiveness.
Now, save once, I have never lost a train in my life. The exception was at
Calais when the Brussels express did, in defiance of the time-table, really
give me and others the slip, carrying with it my bag containing my clothes
and the notes of a most illuminating lecture. I chased that bag all through
Northern France and Belgium, inquiring at wayside stations, wiring to
junctions, hunting among the mountains of luggage at Lille.
It was at Lille that---But the train is slowing down. There is the slope of
the hillside, black against the night sky, and among the trees I see the
glimmer of a light beckoning me as the lonely lamp in Greenhead Ghyll used
to beckon Wordsworth's Michael.
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