Who does not
know the frame of mind? When life seems rather an objectless
business, and one is tempted just to let things slide; when energy
is depleted, and the springs of hope are low; when one feels like
the family in one of Mrs. Walford's books, who all go out to dinner
together, and of whom the only fact that is related is that "nobody
wanted them." So fared it with my soul.
But that morning, somehow, the delicious sense had returned, of its
own accord, of a beautiful quality in common things. I had sought
it in vain for weeks; it had behaved as a cat behaves, the
perverse, soft, pretty, indifferent creature. It had stared blankly
at my beckoning hand; it had gambolled away into the bushes when I
strove to capture it, and looked out at me when I desisted with
innocent grey eyes; and now it had suddenly returned uncalled, to
caress me as though I had been a long-lost friend, diligently and
anxiously sought for in vain. That morning the very scent of
breakfast being prepared came to my nostrils like the smoke of a
sacrifice in my honour; the shape and hue of the flowers were full
of gracious mystery; the green pasture seemed a place where a
middle-aged man might almost venture to dance.
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