What can we do, we who struggle faintly
on our pilgrimage, haunted and misled by hovering delusions, phantoms
of wealth and prosperity and luxury, that hide the narrow path from our
bewildered eyes? We can but resolve to be simple and faithful and pure
and loving, and to trust ourselves as implicitly as we can to the
Father who made us, redeemed us, and loves us better than we love
ourselves.
LV
I have had a fortnight of perfect weather here--the meteorologists call
it by the horrible and ugly name of "anticyclone," which suggests, even
more than the word "cyclone" suggests, the strange weather said by the
Psalmist to be in store for the unrighteous--"Upon the ungodly he shall
rain snares, fire and brimstone, storm and tempest." I have often
wondered what the fields would look like after a rain of snares! The
word "cyclone" by itself suggests a ghastly whorl of high vapours, and
the addition of "anti" seems to make it even more hostile. But an
anticyclone in the springtime is the opening of a door into paradise.
Day after day the fields have lain calm beneath a cool and tranquil
sun, with a light breeze shifting from point to point in the compass.
Day after day I have swept along the great fen-roads, descending from
my little hill-range into the flat. Day by day I have steered slowly
across the gigantic plains, with the far-off farms to left and right
across acres of dark plough-land, rising in dust from the feet of
horses dragging a harrow.
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