So you hold your peace, and try to look as if you
had not thought it out.
This theory is satisfactory except that it does not account for
the absence of the muff. Ah, well, there must always be a mystery
somewhere! Mystery is a part of enchantment.
Manual labor is best. Your heart can sing and your mind can dream
while your hands are working. You could not have a singing heart
and a dreaming mind all day if you had to scheme out dollars,
or if you had to add columns of figures. Those things take your
attention. You cannot be thinking of your friend while you write
letters beginning "Yours of the 17th inst. rec'd and contents
duly noted." But to work with your hands all day, thinking and
singing, and then, after nightfall, to hear the ineffable kindness
of your friend's greeting--always there--for you! Who would wake
from such a dream as this?
Dawn and the sea--music in moonlit gardens--nightingales
serenading through almond-groves in bloom--what could bring such
things into the city's turmoil? Yet they are here, and roses
blossom in the soot. That is what it means not to be alone!
That is what a friend gives you!
Having thus demonstrated that he was about twenty-five and had formed
a somewhat indefinite definition of friendship, but one entirely his
own (and perhaps Mary's) Bibbs went to bed, and was the only Sheridan
to sleep soundly through the night and to wake at dawn with a light
heart.
Pages:
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289