But now, how can we be at ease to enjoy our own lot, however pleasantly it may have been cast for us, or to occupy ourselves with material cares or works, even the most worthy and the most rational?
We are taught to pray, "Thy kingdom come," before we ask for our daily bread.
To pray for what we do not at the same time strive for, is it not an impiety?
Dr. Borrow says that Harry is out of place in our time. I should rather say that it is he himself who is here a century, or perhaps only a half-century, too soon. Our first need now is of men clear-sighted to moral truths, and intrepid to announce and maintain them.
It was through the consciousness, not yet lost, of eternal principles, that primitive poetry made Themis the mother of the gracious Hours,--those beneficent guardians, bringers of good gifts, promoters and rewarders of man's happy labor. When Justice returns to make her reign on earth, with her come back her lovely daughters, and all the beautiful attendant train.
When that time arrives, the Doctor will have found his place, and Harry will not have lost his.
Perhaps I shall not come back until Saturday. According to their plan, Dr. Borrow and Harry are to leave Omocqua again to-morrow afternoon; but I shall try to persuade them to remain until the next morning. While they stay, I shall stay. When they go, Brownie and I take our homeward road. In any case, I will write to you Friday night, and send off my budget on Saturday without fail.
To-day has not given me anything to tell of it yet, except that it has opened as it should, fresh and cloudless. In five hours I shall be on the road.
My paper is blistered and the writing blurred with wet drops. It is only that some freshly gathered flowers on my table have let fall their dew upon the page. You, with the trace of mysticism that lurks in your man of the world's heart, would be drawing unfavorable auguries. I am too happy to accept any to-day. If fancy will sport with this accident, let it feign that these morning tears are of sympathy, but not of compassion; that they fall, not to dim my hopes, but to hallow them.
"In five hours I shall be on the road." So I wrote at six o'clock. I wrote too confidently.
At eleven I had mounted my horse, had sent my last good-bye through the open window, and had caught the last soft answer from within. I lingered yet an instant, held by those links of tenderness and solicitude that bind to home and make the moment of parting for any unusual absence, even though a pleasant and desired one, a moment of effort. A heavy, dragging step, which I almost knew before I saw the lounging figure of Phil Phinn, warned me of a different delay. I watched his slow approach with a resignation which had still a little hope in it; but when he at last stood beside me and began his ingratiating preamble, I felt my sentence confirmed. His woe-begone face, his quivering voice, announced the suppliant before he reached the recital of his wrongs; while the utter self-abandonment of his attitude conveyed renunciation of all cares and responsibilities in favor of his elected patron. I will not give you the details of the difficulty of to-day,--an absurd and paltry one, yet capable of serious consequences to him. I obeyed instinctively the old-fashioned New-England principle I was brought up in, which requires us to postpone the desire of the moment to its demands. Sadly I led my horse to the stable, took off the saddle and put him up. "I cannot be back until two," I thought, "perhaps not before three. I shall lose our walk and our sunset; but even if it is as late as four, I will still go." I ran into the house to say a word of explanation to my mother; but she had heard and understood. She gave me a look of sympathy, and I did not wait for more.