Complete Project Gutenberg John Galsworthy Works eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 6,432 pages of information about Complete Project Gutenberg John Galsworthy Works.

Complete Project Gutenberg John Galsworthy Works eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 6,432 pages of information about Complete Project Gutenberg John Galsworthy Works.

“. . .  When I first saw Derek I thought I should never feel anything but shy and hopeless.  In four days, only in four days, the whole world is different. . . .  And yet, if it hadn’t been for that thunder-storm, I shouldn’t have got over being shy in time.  He has never loved anybody—­nor have I. It can’t often be like that—­it makes it solemn.  There’s a picture somewhere—­not a good one, I know—­of a young Highlander being taken away by soldiers from his sweetheart.  Derek is fiery and wild and shy and proud and dark—­like the man in that picture.  That last day along the hills—­along and along—­with the wind in our faces, I could have walked forever; and then Joyfields at the end!  Their mother’s wonderful; I’m afraid of her.  But Uncle Tod is a perfect dear.  I never saw any one before who noticed so many things that I didn’t, and nothing that I did.  I am sure he has in him what Mr. Cuthcott said we were all losing—­the love of simple, natural conditions.  And then, the moment, when I stood with Derek at the end of the orchard, to say good-by.  The field below covered with those moony-white flowers, and the cows all dark and sleepy; the holy feeling down there was wonderful, and in the branches over our heads, too, and the velvety, starry sky, and the dewiness against one’s face, and the great, broad silence—­it was all worshipping something, and I was worshipping—­worshipping happiness.  I was happy, and I think he was.  Perhaps I shall never be so happy again.  When he kissed me I didn’t think the whole world had so much happiness in it.  I know now that I’m not cold a bit; I used to think I was.  I believe I could go with him anywhere, and do anything he wanted.  What would Dad think?  Only the other day I was saying I wanted to know everything.  One only knows through love.  It’s love that makes the world all beautiful—­makes it like those pictures that seem to be wrapped in gold, makes it like a dream—­no, not like a dream—­like a wonderful tune.  I suppose that’s glamour—­a goldeny, misty, lovely feeling, as if my soul were wandering about with his—­not in my body at all.  I want it to go on and on wandering—­oh!  I don’t want it back in my body, all hard and inquisitive and aching!  I shall never know anything so lovely as loving him and being loved.  I don’t want anything more—­nothing!  Stay with me, please—­Happiness!  Don’t go away and leave me! . . .  They frighten me, though; he frightens me—­their idealism; wanting to do great things, and fight for justice.  If only I’d been brought up more like that—­but everything’s been so different.  It’s their mother, I think, even more than themselves.  I seem to have grown up just looking on at life as at a show; watching it, thinking about it, trying to understand—­not living it at all.  I must get over that; I will.  I believe I can tell the very moment I began to love him.  It was in the schoolroom the second evening.  Sheila and I were sitting there just before dinner, and he

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
Complete Project Gutenberg John Galsworthy Works from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.