He
listened as they grew fainter and fainter, and at last died away
altogether, and from that night the footstep of Bonaparte Blenkins was
heard no more at the old farm.
END Of PART I.
PART II.
"And it was all play, and no one could tell what it had lived and worked
for. A striving, and a striving, and an ending in nothing."
Chapter 2.I. Times and Seasons.
Waldo lay on his stomach on the sand. Since he prayed and howled to his
God in the fuel-house three years had passed.
They say that in the world to come time is not measured out by months and
years. Neither is it here. The soul's life has seasons of its own;
periods not found in any calendar, times that years and months will not
scan, but which are as deftly and sharply cut off from one another as the
smoothly-arranged years which the earth's motion yields us.
To stranger eyes these divisions are not evident; but each, looking back at
the little track his consciousness illuminates, sees it cut into distinct
portions, whose boundaries are the termination of mental states.
As man differs from man, so differ these souls' years. The most material
life is not devoid of them; the story of the most spiritual is told in
them. And it may chance that some, looking back, see the past cut out
after this fashion:
I.
The year of infancy, where from the shadowy background of forgetfulness
start out pictures of startling clearness, disconnected, but brightly
coloured, and indelibly printed in the mind.
Pages:
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164