With my elbows resting on my knees and my face buried in my palms, I
sat and thought of all such weird possibilities, as I looked vacantly
into the fire. There are times when the world, with its exuberance of
pleasure and wealth, is powerless to tempt or cheer us, when its most
splendid pageantry is vapid and shallow to our tired gaze, when its
laughter and song are a noisy discord, that deafens and distracts us!
when its pledges and promises are instruments of selfish purposes and
hidden cunning, and its policy, the exponent of a rabid and
far-reaching materialism. These are moments, when our passions are at
high tide, with our conscience riding on the topmost surface-waves,
they are propitious intervals, if we choose to make the best of them,
or they may only be fitful breaks in the glad monotony of our sensual,
easy-going lives--breaks, that our evil tendencies most often survive,
seeing them rise, and surge, and ebb, in fearless defiance, and then
quietly resuming their old sway, when the moral struggle has subsided!
One afternoon, I made an effort to rouse myself from this growing
lethargy, which had begun to undermine the whole tenor of my
character. Zita and Louis were away, at their schools, and cousin
Bessie was busy as usual over household duties, Girly was frying meat
in the kitchen, and the frizzling, seething noises had almost sent me
to sleep in my chair, where I sat sewing. It wanted a half hour yet of
dinner-time, so I put on my hat and jacket and sauntered out into the
open air.
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