It is not these kind of things I want--I want to know all
about the people who lived before us; I want to know what the stars are,
and what the wind is; I want to know where the lark goes when you lose
him out of sight against the sun; I want to know how the old artists got
to see God, that they could paint him and all his angels as they have
done; I want to know how the voices got into the bells, and how they can
make one's heart beat, hanging up there as they do, all alone among the
jackdaws; I want to know what it is when I walk in the fields in the
morning, and it is all gray and soft and still, and the corn-crake cries
in the wheat, and the little mice run home to their holes, that makes
me so glad and yet so sorrowful, as if I were so very near God, and yet
so all alone, and such a little thing; because you see the mouse she
has her hole, and the crake her own people, but I--"
Her voice faltered a little and stopped: she had never before thought out
into words her own loneliness; from the long green arbor the voices of
the girls and the students sang,--
"Ah! le doux son d'un baiser tendre!"
Flamen was silent.
Pages:
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188