When she had gone, and was safely married to an old
admirer, our expended friend lay, like a gaffed salmon, faintly flapping
on the bank. For a year or more he lay, and dated his recovery of tone
from the moment of finding out the nature of his disaster. "She was
hungry, and I fed her. She was thirsty, and I gave her drink. The Lord
gave, and the Lord hath taken away. Blessed, by all means, be the name of
the Lord."
He proposed now to resume his former life of sojourn in tents and
desultory practice of the arts, a life which, as it was at once highly
practical and entirely dependent upon enjoyment, we may call one of
contemplative activity. For twenty years he had not lived in a house,
slept in a bed, or owned anything beyond the barest necessities. (The only
thing he had, indeed, found himself owning, had at last removed itself.)
He had been by turns poet, painter-in-water-colours, tinker, botaniser,
antinomian, and anarchist; and attributed his success in all these busy
walks to the fact that he was as strongly averse to the possession of
property as he was incapable of getting any. Here, then, was his capital,
with which to commence the world again.
With this at his back, you would have said, he had but to pack his
knapsack, stow his tent, and take to the road.
Pages:
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47