And yet a little while, yet a few days of this fictitious
liberty, and they will begin to hear imperious voices calling on them
to return; and some passion, some duty, some worthy or unworthy
expectation, will set its hand upon their shoulder and lead them back
into the old paths. Once and again we have all made the experiment.
We know the end of it right well. And yet if we make it for the
hundredth time to-morrow: it will have the same charm as ever; our
heart will beat and our eyes will be bright, as we leave the town
behind us, and we shall feel once again (as we have felt so often
before) that we are cutting ourselves loose for ever from our whole
past life, with all its sins and follies and circumscriptions, and go
forward as a new creature into a new world.
It was well, perhaps, that I had this first enthusiasm to encourage
me up the long hill above High Wycombe; for the day was a bad day for
walking at best, and now began to draw towards afternoon, dull,
heavy, and lifeless. A pall of grey cloud covered the sky, and its
colour reacted on the colour of the landscape. Near at hand, indeed,
the hedgerow trees were still fairly green, shot through with bright
autumnal yellows, bright as sunshine.
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