But next day, Want came to me pale and bare. Long after the little
birds had left their nests; long after bees had come in the sweet
prime of day to gather the heath honey before the dew was dried --
when the long morning shadows were curtailed, and the sun filled
earth and sky -- I got up, and I looked round me.
What a still, hot, perfect day! What a golden desert this spreading
moor! Everywhere sunshine. I wished I could live in it and on
it. I saw a lizard run over the crag; I saw a bee busy among the
sweet bilberries. I would fain at the moment have become bee or
lizard, that I might have found fitting nutriment, permanent shelter
here. But I was a human being, and had a human being's wants: I
must not linger where there was nothing to supply them. I rose; I
looked back at the bed I had left. Hopeless of the future, I wished
but this -- that my Maker had that night thought good to require
my soul of me while I slept; and that this weary frame, absolved
by death from further conflict with fate, had now but to decay
quietly, and mingle in peace with the soil of this wilderness. Life,
however, was yet in my possession, with all its requirements, and
pains, and responsibilities. The burden must be carried; the want
provided for; the suffering endured; the responsibility fulfilled.
I set out.
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