Yet how hard it is
for us to find this influence that gifts the hours of time with golden
opinions, and bears them away as if to the measure of some hallowed
strains. There were human souls of every nature beside me, while I
leaned over that sunny deck, looking vacantly out upon miles and miles
of heaving water, and yet it was to me as if I stood alone calling
after friends that could not hear my far-off voice, no bond of mutual
interest, care or devotion united me to any one among that motley
crowd. To them perhaps, I was not even a definite individual, but only
a fraction of the bulk that moved about the boat in moody silence.
If circumstances such as these did not cross our daily lives at
certain intervals, I wonder what would become of all the wholesale
moralising and reflections which they engender for most of us. We, who
are the playthings of the moods of fate, what would we do with
ourselves if these moments of quiet reverie and placid realizations
were taken away from us altogether? One thing is certain. Many a noble
generous deed, the outgrowth of one pensive hour, would never have
been performed; many lives now re-united and happy on account of some
calm impartial meditation, would be drifting in lonely wretchedness
asunder, the victims of some hasty, ill-explained impediment, that a
little reason could easily have removed.
Thus busily entertained by my own peculiar cogitations, time sped
without bringing me as much _ennui_ as I had feared.
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