Thompson, Mrs. Horton, Weeden, and the Policeman glanced at him
gratefully. But it was the last mentioned who replied:
"Because every one," he said with conviction at last, "has his own way
of looking, and even the burgular is only looking wrong." He, too, it
seemed, had found himself.
Their search, their endless hunt, their conversation and adventures
thus might be reported endlessly, if only the book-shelves of the world
were built more stoutly, and everybody could find an Extra Day lying
about in which to read it all. Each seeker held true to his or her
first love, obeying an infallible instinct. The adventure and romance
that hid in Tim and Judy, respectively, sent them headlong after
anything that offered signs of these two common but seductive
qualities. Judy lived literally in the air, her feet, her heart, her
eyes all off the ground; Tim, filled with an equally insatiable
curiosity, found adorable danger in every rabbit-run, and rescued
things innumerable. Off the ground he felt unsafe, unsure, and lost
himself. Stumper, faithful to his scouting passion, disappeared into
all kinds of undesirable places no one else would have dreamed of
looking in, yet invariably--came back; and while Uncle Felix tried a
little of everything and found "copy" in a puddle or a dandelion,
Weeden carried his empty sack without a murmur, knowing it would be
filled with truffles at the end. Aunt Emily, exceedingly particular,
but no longer interfering with the others, was equally sure of herself.
A touch of fluid youth ran in her veins again, and in her heart grew a
fern that presently she would find everywhere outside as well--a
maiden-hair.
Each, however, in some marvellous way, shared the adventures of the
others, as though the Tramp merged all seven of them into one single
being, unified them, at any rate, into this one harmonious, common
purpose with himself. For, while everybody had a different way of
looking, everybody's way--for that particular individual--was exactly
right.
"Smell, then follow," was the secret. "Find your own sign and stick to
it," the clue. Each sign, though by different routes, led straight
towards the marvellous hiding-place. To urge one's own sign upon
another was merely to delay that other; but to point out better signs
of his own particular kind was to send him on faster than before. Thus
there was harmony among them all, for every seeker, knowing this,
had--found himself.
REALITY
X
But, while there was no hurry, no passing, and, most certainly of all,
no passing away, there was a sense of enormous interval. There were
epochs, there were interludes, there was--duration.
Though everything had only just begun, it was yet complete, if not
completed.
At any point of an adventure that adventure could be taken over from
the very start, the experience holding all the thrill and wonder of the
first time.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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