Around him in the morning sunlight fed the sheep; behind him lay his
master polishing his machine. He found much comfort in handling it that
morning. A dozen philosophical essays, or angelically atuned songs for the
consolation of the bereaved, could never have been to him what that little
sheep-shearing machine was that day.
After struggling to see the unseeable, growing drunk with the endeavour to
span the infinite, and writhing before the inscrutable mystery, it is a
renovating relief to turn to some simple, feelable, weighable substance; to
something which has a smell and a colour, which may be handled and turned
over this way and that. Whether there be or be not a hereafter, whether
there be any use in calling aloud to the Unseen power, whether there be an
Unseen power to call to, whatever be the true nature of the "I" who call
and of the objects around me, whatever be our meaning, our internal
essence, our cause (and in a certain order of minds death and the agony of
loss inevitably awaken the wild desire, at other times smothered, to look
into these things), whatever be the nature of that which lies beyond the
unbroken wall which the limits of the human intellect build up on every
hand, this thing is certain--a knife will cut wood, and one cogged wheel
will turn another. This is sure.
Waldo found an immeasurable satisfaction in the handling of his machine;
but Doss winked and blinked, and thought it all frightfully monotonous out
there on the flat, and presently dropped asleep, sitting bolt upright.
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