Impatient for the light of spring, I have slept lately with my blind
drawn up, so that at waking, I have the sky in view. This morning, I
awoke just before sunrise. The air was still; a faint flush of rose to
westward told me that the east made fair promise. I could see no cloud,
and there before me, dropping to the horizon, glistened the horned moon.
The promise held good. After breakfast, I could not sit down by the
fireside; indeed, a fire was scarce necessary; the sun drew me forth, and
I walked all the morning about the moist lanes, delighting myself with
the scent of earth.
On my way home, I saw the first celandine.
So, once more, the year has come full circle. And how quickly; alas, how
quickly! Can it be a whole twelvemonth since the last spring? Because I
am so content with life, must life slip away, as though it grudged me my
happiness? Time was when a year drew its slow length of toil and anxiety
and ever frustrate waiting. Further away, the year of childhood seemed
endless. It is familiarity with life that makes time speed quickly. When
every day is a step in the unknown, as for children, the days are long
with gathering of experience; the week gone by is already far in
retrospect of things learnt, and that to come, especially if it foretell
some joy, lingers in remoteness. Past mid-life, one learns little and
expects little. To-day is like unto yesterday, and to that which shall
be the morrow. Only torment of mind or body serves to delay the
indistinguishable hours. Enjoy the day, and, behold, it shrinks to a
moment.
I could wish for many another year; yet, if I knew that not one more
awaited me, I should not grumble. When I was ill at ease in the world,
it would have been hard to die; I had lived to no purpose, that I could
discover; the end would have seemed abrupt and meaningless. Now, my life
is rounded; it began with the natural irreflective happiness of
childhood, it will close in the reasoned tranquillity of the mature mind.
How many a time, after long labour on some piece of writing, brought at
length to its conclusion, have I laid down the pen with a sigh of
thankfulness; the work was full of faults, but I had wrought sincerely,
had done what time and circumstance and my own nature permitted. Even so
may it be with me in my last hour. May I look back on life as a long
task duly completed--a piece of biography; faulty enough, but good as I
could make it--and, with no thought but one of contentment, welcome the
repose to follow when I have breathed the word "Finis."