XXIV
Waking at early dawn used to be one of the things I most dreaded. The night which made me capable of resuming labour had brought no such calm as should follow upon repose; I woke to a vision of the darkest miseries and lay through the hours of daybreak--too often-- in very anguish. But that is past. Sometimes, ere yet I know myself, the mind struggles as with an evil spirit on the confines of sleep; then the light at my window, the pictures on my walls, restore me to happy consciousness, happier for the miserable dream. Now, when I lie thinking, my worst trouble is wonder at the common life of man. I see it as a thing so incredible that it oppresses the mind like a haunting illusion. Is it the truth that men are fretting, raving, killing each other, for matters so trivial that I, even I, so far from saint or philosopher, must needs fall into amazement when I consider them? I could imagine a man who, by living alone and at peace, came to regard the everyday world as not really existent, but a creation of his own fancy in unsound moments. What lunatic ever dreamt of things less consonant with the calm reason than those which are thought and done every minute in every community of men called sane? But I put aside this reflection as soon as may be; it perturbs me fruitlessly. Then I listen to the sounds about my cottage, always soft, soothing, such as lead the mind to gentle thoughts. Sometimes I can hear nothing; not the rustle of a leaf, not the buzz of a fly, and then I think that utter silence is best of all.
This morning I was awakened by a continuous sound which presently shaped itself to my ear as a multitudinous shrilling of bird voices. I knew what it meant. For the last few days I have seen the swallows gathering, now they were ranged upon my roof, perhaps in the last council before their setting forth upon the great journey. I know better than to talk about animal instinct, and to wonder in a pitying way at its resemblance to reason. I know that these birds show to us a life far more reasonable, and infinitely more beautiful, than that of the masses of mankind. They talk with each other, and in their talk is neither malice nor folly. Could one but interpret the converse in which they make their plans for the long and perilous flight--and then compare it with that of numberless respectable persons who even now are projecting their winter in the South!