Towards democracy, стр. 82

68 Towards Democracy

alTanging the photographs of fashionable beauties and favorite companions, and stay with him 3 We are at ease and under- | stand each other.

I dance at the village feast in the upper room of a. public ; my partner shows me the steps and figures. The elderly harper, so noble and dignified, accompanies his son’s fiddle—or goes round to collect the pence—but all the while his thoughts are with his only daughter in Australia.

The wheel turns, but whatever it brings uppermost is well.

XLVI

I lie abed in illness, and experience strange extensions of spirit. I am close to those afar off, and the present and near at hand are discounted. I spend mights of pain and loneliness,

I dream of the beautiful life. 1 go down to the sea with fisher folk, and spend chill nights on the great deep under the stars; the sun rises on faces round me of freedom and experience. I see everywhere the old simple occupations —the making and mending of nets, the growing of flax and hemp, the tending of gardens, cattle—the old sweet excuses for existence, their meaning now partly understood—the faith that grows in the open air and out of all honest work till it surrounds and redeems the soul.

The blacksmith blows up his fire; he listens for the sound of the great heat. He taps the glowing iron in advance of the blows of the striker, and turns it deftly with the tongs.

The budder of roses bends among the low bushes;