Back once more in England, I threw aside the clinging robe of meditation, and falling upon work ravenously, indulged what genius of energy was still alive within me. I made haste to adore all that I had so lately burned, making life objective, revering personal ideals, and in the ordinance of material things finding the truest satisfaction of all endeavour. I saw in civilization the world's sole hope; its brisk life and abounding force took sudden hold of a fancy enervated by dreams. Again I found a new heaven and a new earth, though earth was now no more than man's dinted anvil, and heaven his reservoir of useful light. I lived for action and movement; I mingled eagerly with my fellows, and cursed the folly which had driven me to waste three years in an intellectual swoon. Now the day was not long enough for work, Lebanon was not sufficient to burn. I saw the western man with race-dust on his cheeks, or throned in the power-houses of the world, moving upon iron platforms and straight ladders in the mid throb and tumult of encompassing engines. One false step, and he must fall a crushed and mutilated thing. Yet unconcerned as one strolling at large, he controlled the great wheels and plunging pistons, and brought them to a standstill with a touch of his finger. The confidence and strenuous ease of such life compelled me to marvel and admire, and I who had so lately lain at the feet of eastern sages, set up this mechanician as my god. If I looked back at all to the land of dreams, the placid figure beneath the Tree of Enlightenment took on the aspect of a fool's idol, ignobly self-manacled, pitiful and irksome in remembrance. But if once more I dreamed of finality in change I deceived myself, forgetting that God Himself cannot unmake the past or undo what is done. A year had hardly gone by in this new apprenticeship to life, when at moments of weariness or overstrain sharp doubts shot through me and were gone again, like twinges of sudden pain recalling old disease to one who has lulled himself with dreams of cure. The feeling of fellowship with men grew weaker, and as it waned I began to shrink once more from my kind. I still believed myself happy, but happiness seemed to need constant affirmation, as though it could make no way in my favour without display of token or credential to confirm its truth. There were pauses in the clatter and jangle of life; the revolutions of the great wheels sometimes slowed into silence; and as these interludes grew more frequent, I caught myself repeating that I really was content. The faint assurance given, I flung myself with devouring industry upon my allotted task, trying to stifle the forebodings which prophesied against my peace.