THE WINTER NIGHT 397 



dark as the winter night outside ; there is sunlight upon 

 no part of it except the past and the far, far distant future. 

 I feel as if I micst break through this deadness, this in- 

 ertia, and find some outlet for my energies. Can't some- 

 thing happen } Could not a hurricane come and tear up 

 this ice, and set it rolling in high waves like the open 

 sea ? Welcome danger, if it only brings us the chance 

 of fighting for our lives — only lets us move onward! 

 The miserable thinof is to be inactive onlookers, not to be 

 able to lift a hand to help ourselves forward. It wants 

 ten times more strength of mind to sit still and trust in 

 your theories and let nature work them out without your 

 being able so much as to lay one stick across another to 

 help, than it does to trust in working them out by your 

 own energy — that is nothing when you have a pair of 

 strono^ arms. Here I sit, whinins^ like an old woman. 

 Did I not know all this before I started } Things have 

 not gone worse than I expected, but, on the contrary, 

 rather better. Where is now the serene hopefulness that 

 spread itself in the daylight and the sun } Where are 

 those proud imaginings now that mounted like young 

 eagles towards the brightness of the future ? Like 

 broken-winged, wet crows they leave the sunlit sea, and 

 hide themselves in the misty marshes of despondency. 

 Perhaps it will all come back again with the south wind ; 

 but, no — I must go and rummage up one of the old phi- 

 losophers again. 



" There is a little pressure this evening, and an ob- 



