Yes, I
suppose I slept, and ate the food put before me, and talked connectedly
to my household on suitable occasions. But I had never been aware of
the even flow of daily life, made easy and noiseless for me by a silent,
watchful, tireless affection. Indeed, it seemed to me that I had been
sitting at that table surrounded by the litter of a desperate fray for
days and nights on end. It seemed so, because of the intense weariness
of which that interruption had made me aware--the awful disenchantment
of a mind realizing suddenly the futility of an enormous task, joined
to a bodily fatigue such as no ordinary amount of fairly heavy physical
labour could ever account for. I have carried bags of wheat on my back,
bent almost double under a ship's deck-beams, from six in the morning
till six in the evening (with an hour and a half off for meals), so I
ought to know.
And I love letters. I am jealous of their honour and concerned for the
dignity and comeliness of their service. I was, most likely, the only
writer that neat lady had ever caught in the exercise of his craft, and
it distressed me not to be able to remember when it was that I dressed
myself last, and how. No doubt that would be all right in essentials.
Pages:
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160