Page:A Passionate Pilgrim and Other Tales (1875).djvu/205

Rh there like a great surging sea, where we must plunge and dive and feel the breeze and breast the waves. I stand shivering here on the brink, staring, longing, wondering, charmed by the smell of the brine and yet afraid of the water. The world beckons and smiles and calls, but a nameless influence from the past, that I can neither wholly obey nor wholly resist, seems to hold me back. I'm full of impulses, but, somehow, I'm not full of strength. Life seems inspiring at certain moments, but it seems terrible and unsafe; and I ask myself why I should wantonly measure myself with merciless forces, when I have learned so well how to stand aside and let them pass. Why should n't I turn my back upon it all and go home to—what awaits me?—to that sightless, soundless country life, and long days spent among old books? But if a man is weak, he does n't want to assent beforehand to his weakness; he wants to taste whatever sweetness there may be in paying for the knowledge. So it is there comes and comes again this irresistible impulse to take my plunge, to let myself swing, to go where liberty leads me." He paused a moment, fixing me with his excited eyes, and perhaps perceived in my own an irrepressible smile at his intensity. "'Swing ahead, in heaven's name,' you want to say, 'and much good may it do you.' I don't know whether you are laughing at my trepidation or at what possibly strikes you as my