It was a singular
hypnotic moment, indeed. He himself was hypnotised. A flashlight of
new vision blazed before him and left him dumb. He took up his pipe
hurriedly, and with still unsteady fingers began to refill it. When it
was filled he lighted it, and then without a word of answer left the
hearth and began to tramp up and down the room again--out of the dim
light into the shadows, back out of the shadows and into the dim light
again, his brow working and his teeth holding hard his amber mouthpiece.
The morning awakening of a normal healthy human creature should be a
joyous thing. After the soul's long hours of release from the burden of
the body, its long hours spent--one can only say in awe at the mystery
of it, "away, away"--in flight, perhaps, on broad, tireless wings,
beating softly in fair, far skies, breathing pure life, to be brought
back to renew the strength of each dawning day; after these hours of
quiescence of limb and nerve and brain, the morning life returning
should unseal for the body clear eyes of peace at least. In time to
come this will be so, when the soul's wings are stronger, the body more
attuned to infinite law and the race a greater power--but as yet it
often seems as though the winged thing came back a lagging and reluctant
rebel against its fate and the chain which draws it back a prisoner to
its toil.
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