He may be
flouted, contemned, insulted, but he heeds it not; while all the
strands of the great mystery, dark and bright alike, work
themselves, delicately and surely, into the picture of his life,
and the picture of other lives as well. Larger and richer grows the
great design, till it is set in some wide hall or corridor of the
House of Life; and the figure of the toil-worn knight, with armour
dinted and brow dimmed with dust and sweat, kneeling at the shrine,
makes the very silence of the place beautiful; while those that go
to and fro rejoice, not in the suffering and weariness, not in the
worn face and the thin, sun-browned hands, but in the thought that
he loved all things well; that his joy was pure and high, that his
clear eyes pierced the dull mist that wreathed cold field and
dripping wood, and that, when he sank, outworn and languid after
the day's long toil, the jocund trumpets broke out from the high-
walled town in a triumphant concert, because he had done worthily,
and should now see greater things than these.
Pages:
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262