If he grows faint-hearted or weary and no longer
strives, for a little while he floats, and then at last, morally or
physically, he vanishes. We struggle for our livelihoods, and for all
that makes life worth living in the material sense, and not the less
are we called upon to struggle with an army of spiritual woes and
fears, which now we vanquish and now are vanquished by. Every man of
refinement, and many women, will be able to recall periods in his or
her existence when life has seemed not only valueless but hateful,
when our small successes, such as they are, dwindled away and vanished
in the gulf of our many failures, when our hopes and aspirations faded
like a little sunset cloud, and we were surrounded by black and lonely
mental night, from which even the star of Faith had passed. Such a
time had come to Harold Quaritch now. His days had not, on the whole,
been happy days; but he was a good and earnest man, with that touching
faith in Providence which is given to some among us, and which had
brought with it the reward of an even thankful spirit. And then, out
of the dusk of his contentment a hope of happiness had arisen like the
Angel of the Dawn, and suddenly life was aflame with the light of
love, and became beautiful in his eyes. And now the hope had passed:
the woman whom he deeply loved, and who loved him back again, had gone
from his reach and left him desolate--gone from his reach, not into
the grave, but towards the arms of another man.
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