Within was a subdued bustle of women, a flitting of
lights, and the doing of petty offices to that queer, exhausted thing
that had once been my active and urgent little uncle. For me those
offices were irksome and impertinent. I slammed the door, and went out
into the warm, foggy drizzle of the village street lit by blurred specks
of light in great voids of darkness, and never a soul abroad. That warm
veil of fog produced an effect of vast seclusion. The very houses by the
roadside peered through it as if from another world. The stillness of
the night was marked by an occasional remote baying of dogs; all these
people kept dogs because of the near neighbourhood of the frontier.
Death!
It was one of those rare seasons of relief, when for a little time one
walks a little outside of and beside life. I felt as I sometimes feel
after the end of a play. I saw the whole business of my uncle's life as
something familiar and completed. It was done, like a play one leaves,
like a book one closes. I thought of the push and the promotions, the
noise of London, the crowded, various company of people through which
our lives had gone, the public meetings, the excitements, the dinners
and disputations, and suddenly it appeared to me that none of these
things existed.
Pages:
617
618
619
620
621
622
623
624
625
626
627
628
629
630
631
632
633
634
635
636
637
638
639
640
641