I can hardly make
you understand, I am sure I cannot make you feel--I myself cannot feel,
I can only remember--what a bright natural creature I was when I was
young."
"Don't I remember well," said Lefevre, "what you were like when I first
met you in Paris?"
"Ah," said Julius, "the change had begun then,--the change that has
brought me to this. I contemplate myself as I was before that with
bitter envy and regret. I was as a being sprung fresh from the womb of
primitive Nature. I delighted in Nature as a child delights in its
mother, and I throve on my delight as a child thrives. I refused to go
to school--and indeed little pressure was put upon me--to be drilled in
the paces and hypocrisy of civilised mankind. I ran wild about the
country; I became proficient in all bodily exercises; I fenced and
wrestled and boxed; I leaped and swam; I rowed for days alone in a
skiff; I associated with simple peasants, and with all kinds of animals;
I delighted in air and water, and grass and trees: to me they were as
much alive as beasts are. Oh, what an exquisite, abounding, unclouded
pleasure life was! When I was hungry I ate; when I was thirsty I drank;
when I was tired I slept; and when I woke I stretched myself like a
giant refreshed.
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