Secret BreadJesse, F. Tennyson (Fryniwyd Tennyson)
General
Secret Bread
Jesse, F. Tennyson (Fryniwyd Tennyson)
Cornwall (England : County) -- Fiction
"I think I can fairly lay claim to being a broadminded ''vert'" said
Judith, "but of course, you know, I can't help feeling I've got
something in the way of what makes things worth while that you haven't?"
"Yes, I know you do. I see you're bound to have. But of course, owing to
what the Parson inculcated into me, I think I've got it too, but I quite
see I can't expect you to think so."
"It's seeing the light that matters most, I think," said Judy. "We
believe the same though I _know_ I've got it, and you only _think_ you
have! But it's the thinking that is all important. The mystery to me is
how anyone can be satisfied with the phenomena of this world alone as
an answer to the riddle."
"It's not so much of a mystery to me. The world is so very beautiful
that it can stand instead of human love, so why not, to some people,
instead of Divine love also? The beauty of it is what I have chiefly
lived by. It could for very long thrill me to the exclusion of
everything else."
"And now?" asked Judith.
"Now? Now I am old that has been young, and still I cannot answer you
that. I believe these airmen tell you of air pockets they come to, holes
in the atmosphere, where their machines drop, drop.... I think I am in
an air pocket, a hole between the guiding winds of the spirit ... one is
too occupied in not dropping when in those holes to think of anything
else. Action is the best thing, which is why I am now going to leave you
to sow the four-acre."
He got up, slowly and painfully, though he stood as erect as ever once
he was upon his feet. He stood a moment looking at Judith.
"Judy, d'you ever have those times when you feel something is going to
happen?" he asked, "when you expect something to come round the corner,
so to speak, at every moment. One so often had it in one's youth--one
woke with it every morning: I don't mean that, but the expectation of
some one thing that is in the air so near one that any moment it may
break into actuality?"
"I never have it now, my dear, but I know what you mean. Why? Have you
got it?"
"Yes."
"Is it about anything particular you are feeling it?"
"No, no; my uncanny vision doesn't go as far as that, I'm afraid."
"Dare I murmur indigestion?" she asked, with a gentle chuckle, hunching
herself into her shawls.
"You may murmur, but I scorn you as a materialist and one who isn't
even genuine. I go to my sowing, but you'll see if this old man is not
justified of his dreams." He left her, and she watched him across the
lawn with the detached affection of the old in her eyes; then she took
up, not her knitting or her writing-pad, but the little book of
devotions that lay in a fold of her shawl, and started to read, her lips
moving slightly but soundlessly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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