Page:Adams - A Child of the Age.djvu/119

107 '"Very well. Don't let's talk about it any more.—One moment, though. Am I to halve the dose? Is it too strong for you?"

'"No, sir: double it; but"

'"Your stomach can't stand it yet? Never mind. I only wonder that it has stood so much. Go on taking your medicine like a man (I don't mind your pulling faces now and then: perhaps it is rather nasty!) and …" (with a smile). "Well you shall have some jam afterwards!"

'"Will you tell me the sort?" I asked, but in a purposeless sort of way, for it seemed as if he expected me to ask for an explanation of his "jam afterwards."

'"You will be more contented, less self-conscious, a better member of society generally: I mean, more ready to put yourself out to talk to 'fools,' less eager to find fault with wiser people than yourself. In a word, more healthy!" 'I kept silence; for I felt that it would be quite useless to speak.'

The next day has:

'Mr. Brooke with me to the Riding School. Nothing particular.' And, after a space, the following remark: 'These riding lessons five times a week are not without their pleasure to me. I am pleased at my complete freedom from fear. But, can I ever be afraid of anything again? For have I not realised how small an atom I am of things living and dead, how valueless, as I am, to things as yet uncreated? I am a spectator of existence in general, and of my own in particular.—How can a man who believes in nothing but bare existence and the beauty of Truth, and feels that he is floating along, weak and not far from helpless, have fear? What are a few more seconds to him?'

Here my enthusiasm for a full Journal seems to have given way. The rest is made up of simple notifications of the general events of each day.

This short period of my life is, strangely or not, one of those about which I remember least. It may be that I was too absorbed in what Mr. Brooke dubbed for me my 'dreams' to notice even what took place to myself. It may be. Perhaps that may account for the long