The Zeit-Geist by Lily Dougall
page 73 of 129 (56%)
page 73 of 129 (56%)
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passing, and all the life and perplexity of which she must remind him,
entered into Toyner's half-closed avenues of sense. For two days the sun rose on Bart through the mellow, smoke-dimmed atmosphere. Each night it lay in a red cloud for an hour in the west, tingeing and dyeing all the mirror below the trees with red. No one was there in the desolate lake to see the twice-told glory of that rosy flood and firmament, unless it was this wondrous light that first penetrated the eyes of the prisoner with soothing brightness. It was at some hour of light--sunset or sunrise, or it might have been in the blending of the mornings and the evenings in that confusion of mind which takes no heed of time--that Toyner first began to know himself. Then it was not of himself that he took knowledge; his heart in its waking felt after something else around and beneath and above him, everywhere, something that meant light and comfort and rest and love, something that was very strong, that was strength; he himself, Bart Toyner, was part of this strength, and rested in it with a rest and refreshing which is impossible to weakness, however much it may crave. It came to him as he lay there, not knowing the where or when of his knowledge--it came to him that he had made a great mistake, as a little child makes a mistake in laughable ignorance. Indeed, he laughed within himself as he thought what a strange, childish, grotesque notion he had had,--he had thought, he had actually thought, that God was only a part of things; that he, Bart Toyner, could turn away from God; that God's power was only with him when he supposed himself to be obedient to Him! Yes, he had thought this; but now he knew that God was all and in all. There came to him, trooping with this new joy of knowledge, the sensuous |
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