Space and Time had no more meaning for him. He was again eternal and
infinite. All this beauty of earth and sky and moon-wan water, it was
not outside him, it was himself. He reached out a hand to pluck a
handful of stars, and could not--because they were too close. You
cannot pluck the jewels of your own heart.
Yet however deep he plunged into Eternity, the ache of Time was still
present to his mind, remote indeed, on the farthest shores of memory,
but always there, an ache that would not still. He felt the pain of
it, and still more the pettiness. To him, sitting at the heart of
things, drinking in the great night, they seemed strangely mean and
tawdry now, the excitements of the past day.
_Let not your heart be troubled_, came the voice of the Poet of
Truth down the ages.
Was it worthy of a Son of God so to vex himself with the trivialities
of this world?
What was war? what victory? what defeat?
True he must do his best for conscience' sake, but God would swing the
stars across the heaven whether Napoleon landed or not. He would still
march on His great way, though Nelson were lost.
Smiling to himself, the lad was wondering whether to the Maker of
those stars, this earth, that sea, the issue of this business might be
more than the issue of a squabble between two sparrows would be to
him.
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