But next day, Want came to me pale and bare. Long after the little
birds had left their nests; long after bees had come in the sweet
prime of day to gather the heath honey before the dew was dried--
when the long morning shadows were curtailed, and the sun filled
earth and sky--I got up, and I looked round me.
What a still, hot, perfect day! What a golden desert this spreading
moor! Everywhere sunshine. I wished I could live in it and on it.
I saw a lizard run over the crag; I saw a bee busy among the sweet
bilberries. I would fain at the moment have become bee or lizard,
that I might have found fitting nutriment, permanent shelter here.
But I was a human being, and had a human being's wants: I must not
linger where there was nothing to supply them. I rose; I looked
back at the bed I had left. Hopeless of the future, I wished but
this--that my Maker had that night thought good to require my soul
of me while I slept; and that this weary frame, absolved by death
from further conflict with fate, had now but to decay quietly, and
mingle in peace with the soil of this wilderness. Life, however,
was yet in my possession, with all its requirements, and pains, and
responsibilities. The burden must be carried; the want provided
for; the suffering endured; the responsibility fulfilled. I set
out.
Whitcross regained, I followed a road which led from the sun, now
fervent and high. By no other circumstance had I will to decide my
choice. I walked a long time, and when I thought I had nearly done
enough, and might conscientiously yield to the fatigue that almost
overpowered me--might relax this forced action, and, sitting down on
a stone I saw near, submit resistlessly to the apathy that clogged
heart and limb--I heard a bell chime--a church bell.
I turned in the direction of the sound, and there, amongst the
romantic hills, whose changes and aspect I had ceased to note an
hour ago, I saw a hamlet and a spire. All the valley at my right
hand was full of pasture-fields, and cornfields, and wood; and a
glittering stream ran zig-zag through the varied shades of green,
the mellowing grain, the sombre woodland, the clear and sunny lea.
Recalled by the rumbling of wheels to the road before me, I saw a
heavily-laden waggon labouring up the hill, and not far beyond were
two cows and their drover. Human life and human labour were near.
I must struggle on: strive to live and bend to toil like the rest.