And then there came back on him, like a flood, the dumb misery of
incompetence which had weighed on heart and brain. The hatred of the
whole struggling, sordid crew, all the cant and ugliness and ignorance
of a mad world, his weakness in the face of it, his fall from common
virtue, his nerveless indolence--all stung him like needle points, till
he cried out in agony. Anything to deliver his soul from such a
bondage, and in his extreme bitterness his mind closed with Wratislaw's
offer.
He felt--and it is a proof of his weakness--a certain nameless feeling
of content when he had once forced himself into the resolution. Now at
least he had found a helm and a port to strain to. As his fancy dwelt
upon the mission and drew airy pictures of the land, he found to his
delight a boyish enthusiasm arising. Old simple pleasures seemed for
the moment dear. There was a zest for toils and discomforts, a
tolerance of failure, which had been aforetime his chief traveller's
heritage.
And then as he came to the ridge where the road passes from Glenavelin
to Glen Adler, he stopped as in duty bound to look at the famous
prospect. You stand at the shedding of two streams; behind, the green
and woodland spaces of the pastoral Avelin; at the feet, a land of
stones and dwarf junipers and naked rifts in the hills, with
white-falling waters and dark shadows even at midday.
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