Page:The Yellow Book - 13.djvu/293

Rh the cold sight, not like the tinged vision of the enthusiast. You have not the blessing of credulity, that soothing hand that strokes keen thought to slumber. Surely men whose sharp perception has never been corroded with the rust of reverence see too finely to be ever quite content. And contentment is what we strive for by many strange, sad paths, trod out by the tired feet of former men.

One man's self holds many natures, some of them sleeping: perhaps we should be much alike could we ever be quite awake. And to be content is the result alone of that which we never practise nor give care to—our own natures. We live eager after exterior things, and try to yield to what is acquired—the place of that which we boast is everlasting and cannot be acquired our personality. But this unnoticed possession sits on a shadowy throne that cannot be usurped, and our noisy every-days pass over it like foam on deep water.

Once a story grew into a reality in my mind in the years, the story of an Indian beyond the Father of Waters. He grew mad and followed after the setting sun in its smoky crimson. But the place where it touched the earth receded and for ever receded across the plains, and the shadows grew suddenly out of the nowhere where they wait eternally. The gaunt hunter followed across the rolling lands and over the mountains, till, after many months, the ocean touched his hard feet. The strangers who watched from the shore saw his canoe lessen down the fiery path of the sunset, become small, very tiny, disappear into the sad last light; and the sun went down, and the dusk came, and the night came.

This is sad to you and me, for there is disappointment in it and ecstasy of too high ideals.

A boy walks in a cathedral, sacred and silent, in the city of reality. All round him rise the statues of his ideals, memorable Rh