ace to meet, to hail there with flagons the arrival of the Dove.
But I do not want to be reminded of what has happened since that day.
That festival could now have but one celebrant. Then, in another year of
the War, in a mood of contrition and dismay, some people began to feel
that on the day Peace arrived it would be seemly if she found them on
their knees in church. Since that day, too, much has happened; and when
Peace does come I suppose most of us will make reasonably certain the
bird resembles a dove, and go to bed early--taking another look at the
long-lost creature next morning, in the presence of a competent witness,
to confirm that we have not been deceived again by another turkey
buzzard; and, if that is certain, then let the matter drop.

For in these years, when heavy weather obscures the fixed lights, and we
are not certain about our bearings, it is useless to pretend that the
darkness which once made us content with a book is now a worse kind of
darkness only because intensified by a private shadow. The shadow of a
personal grief does not wholly explain its sinister intensity. The night
itself is different. It hides a world unknown. If a sun is to rise on
that world, then not even a false dawn yet shows. When we stand peering
into our night, where the sound of rain and wind is like nothing the
memory knows, and may be even the dark tumult portending a day of wrath,
we may turn again in solitude to what is left to us, to our books; but
not with quiet content. To-morrow we may pull ourselves together.
Curiosity about our new world may awaken. We may become adventurous, and
make an effort towards greeting the unknown with a cheer, to show it
there is no settled ill-feeling. But it has been my experience that when
leaving port in dark weather, though the voyage to come was to be novel
and interesting, one heard very little cheering from the glum figures
working about the deck. The ship is sea-worthy, but she is bleak and
foreign. In a week all will be well. We shall have cleared these icy
latitudes. The sky will be fairer. We shall have more sun. We shall have
become accustomed to our shipmates' unfamiliar faces and ways. It is only
the start that is sullen and unpropitious.

And here is Peace coming, and a new world, and there are my books; yet
though this pipe after midnight is nearly done, and the fire too, I have
not been able to settle on a book. The books are like the ashes on the
hearth. And listen to