One does not always know at the time that the day is going to be so
crowned; but the weeks pass on, and the one little space of
sunlight, between dawn and eve, has orbed itself
"into the perfect star
We saw not, when we moved therein."
The thing that in my own case most tends to produce this "grace of
congruity," as the schoolmen say, is the presence of the right
companion, and it is no less important that he should be in the
right mood. Sometimes the right companion is tiresome when he
should be gracious, or boisterous when he should be quiet; but when
he is in the right mood, he is like a familiar and sympathetic
guide on a mountain peak. He helps one at the right point; his
desire to push on or to stop coincides with one's own; he is not a
hired assistant, but a brotherly comrade. On the day that I am
thinking of I had just such a companion. He was cheerful,
accessible, good-humoured. He followed when I wanted to lead, he
led when I was glad to follow. He was not ashamed of being
unaffectedly emotional, and he was not vaporous or quixotically
sentimental.
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