. . and so it is to save your mother
that you give up your own dreams, and to warm her soul that you keep
that flame of gladness burning in you? Is that the sort you are?
Merle--was ever such a name? Are you called Merle?
Day spreads over the heavens, kindling all the night-clouds, great and
small, to gold and scarlet. And here he lies, rocking, rocking, on no
lake, but on a red stately-heaving ocean swell.
Ah! till now your mind has been so filled with cold mechanics, with
calculations, with steel and fire. More and more knowledge, ever more
striving to understand all things, to know all, to master all. But
meanwhile, the tones of the hymn died within you, and the hunger for
that which lies beyond all things grew ever fiercer and fiercer. You
thought it was Norway that you needed--and now you are here. But is it
enough?
Merle--is your name Merle?
There is nothing that can be likened to the first day of love. All your
learning, your travel, and deeds and dreams--all has been nothing but
dry firewood that you have dragged and heaped together. And now has come
a spark, and the whole heap blazes up, casting its red glow over earth
and heaven, and you stretch out your cold hands, and warm them, and
shiver with joy that a new bliss has come upon the earth.
And all that you could not understand--the relation between the spark
of eternity in your soul and the Power above, and the whole of endless
space--has all of a sudden become so clear that you lie here trembling
with joy at seeing to the very bottom of the infinite enigma.
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