The most innocent of passions will take the edge off
one's judgment. The desire which possessed me was simply the desire to
travel. And that being so it would have taken something very plain in
the way of symptoms to shake my simple trust in the stability of things
on the Continent. My sentiment and not my reason was engaged there. My
eyes were turned to the past, not to the future; the past that one cannot
suspect and mistrust, the shadowy and unquestionable moral possession the
darkest struggles of which wear a halo of glory and peace.
In the preceding month of May we had received an invitation to spend some
weeks in Poland in a country house in the neighbourhood of Cracow, but
within the Russian frontier. The enterprise at first seemed to me
considerable. Since leaving the sea, to which I have been faithful for
so many years, I have discovered that there is in my composition very
little stuff from which travellers are made. I confess that my first
impulse about a projected journey is to leave it alone. But the
invitation received at first with a sort of dismay ended by rousing the
dormant energy of my feelings.
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