To the urban workman--the journeyman baker or
tailor, for instance, labouring year in year out in a single building--a
holiday ramble on Hampstead Heath is a veritable voyage of discovery;
whereas to the sailor the shifting panorama of the whole wide world is
but the commonplace of the day's work.
So I reflected as I took my place in the train at Liverpool Street on
the following day. There had been a time when a trip by rail to the
borders of Epping Forest would have been far from a thrilling
experience; now, after vegetating in the little world of Fetter Lane, it
was quite an adventure.
The enforced inactivity of a railway journey is favourable to thought,
and I had much to think about. The last few weeks had witnessed
momentous changes in my outlook. New interests had arisen, new
friendships had grown up; and, above all, there had stolen into my life
that supreme influence that, for good or for evil, according to my
fortune, was to colour and pervade it even to its close. Those few days
of companionable labour in the reading-room, with the homely
hospitalities of the milk-shop and the pleasant walks homeward through
the friendly London streets, had called into existence a new world--a
world in which the gracious personality of Ruth Bellingham was the one
dominating reality.
Pages:
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245