passionate as theirs
toward all manifestations of the world's beauty, impossible. Unconscious
of any particular thought, they shared a dreamless reverie which was so
perfect in its rest and so complete in its still contentment that they
did not know that they were resting, nor could they realise that such
sweet hours, even as bitter ones, do not loiter in their passing or come
again. Soon enough Robert saw himself very far gone from the
undissembled sternness of his old resolutions. If he could but be rid of
that altogether! He thought he had obtained a mystic recognition of the
terrorless but uncommunicating Joy of life which while men live they
pursue, desiring it with the one human craving which survives every
misfortune, every thwarted hope, all enslavement of the heart's small
freedom--the thirst for happiness. Was man, whom God had made in His
own Image, but a shadow on the unstable wind? Could it be true that he
came in with vanity and departed in darkness, his soul bereft of God,
knowing not his time, finding not the work that is done under the sun,
born to companion worms in the dust? Should he remain unresisting and
without influence on the decision of his own destiny? Yet he remembered
the precept of Christ: "Whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and
whosoever will lose his life for My sake shall find it"--words which put
forth a great mystery, perhaps a warning. Plainly, in all that a man
could bring to the world, or take from it, there was vanity and death;
but many things were vain merely because they were not eternal, and many
things perished because where life is, change must be. Immutable,
permanent possessions were the gifts of God to men. But the gifts of men
to God would always be imperfect--whether they offered the sacrifice of
their wills or their imagined earthly happiness. Yet if this
imperfection were a mean one, something less grand than the immeasurable
sanctity of Divine strength made human and therefore sorrowful,
therefore not omnipotent, therefore liable to error--where then was the
merit of renouncing a manhood already too squalid to be endured, friends
that were phantoms, loves that were lies, joys that were void promises
invented by the cruel for the disappointment of the foolish? He looked
down at Brigit, who, wrapped in her furs, was stretched out by his side,
her beautiful, child-like countenance turned toward him, smiling in
faith and deep unspeakable tenderness. He could hear h