Towards democracy, стр. 83

Towards Democracy 69

with a quick motion he flirts out the wood and binds the bud on the wild stock. The wire-weaver stands at his loom, working the treadles with his foot and throwing the shuttle with alternate hand.

The old coach-body maker stands at his bench, greyhaired, worn, thoughtful—the young apprentice comes down whistling from the trimming shop to ask him a question.

The sunlight streams in broad shafts through the chinks of the blinds into the carpenter’s shop ; with grizzled beard and hair, and something of a stoop in his shoulders, the governor stands penciling out a fresh job; a tall young fellow sits astride of a door-style, cutting a mortise, and a dab of light on the floor sends a reflection up in his arch-humored face.

The bathers in the late twilight, almost dark, advance naked under the trees by the waterside, five or six together, superb, unashamed, scarcely touching the ground.

The budding pens of love scorch all over me—my skin is too tight, I am ready to burst through it—a flaming girdle is round my middle. Eyes, hair, lips, hands, waist, thighsO naked mad tremors; in the dark feeding pasturing flames!

O soul, spreading, spreading—impalpable sunlight behind the sunlight!

The tall thin grey-bearded man I meet daily in the street—with lined brow, silent, full of experience ;

The stout matron in the greengrocer’s shop, loquacious, clear-eyed, with clear indubitable voice ;

The thick-thighed hot coarse-fleshed young bricklayer with the strap round his waist ;