At this time I never had any consolation, except in long solitary
walks, and my meditations then were so far aloof from common life,
that on my return my fall was like that of the eagle, which the
sportsman's hand calls bleeding from his lofty flight, to stain the
earth with his blood.
In such hours we feel so noble, so full of love and bounty, that we
cannot conceive how any pain should have been needed to teach us. It
then seems we are so born for good, that such means of leading us to
it were wholly unnecessary. But I have lived to know that the secret
of all things is pain, and that nature travaileth most painfully with
her noblest product. I was not without hours of deep spiritual
insight, and consciousness of the inheritance of vast powers. I
touched the secret of the universe, and by that touch was invested
with talismanic power which has never left me, though it sometimes
lies dormant for a long time.
One day lives always in my memory; one chastest, heavenliest day of
communion with the soul of things. It was Thanksgiving-day. I was free
to be alone; in the meditative woods, by the choked-up fountain, I
passed its hours, each of which contained ages of thought and emotion.
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