HIGHER LAWS. 
230 
long when he heard some one playing on a flute, and 
that sound harmonized with his mood. Still he thought 
of his work; but the burden of his thought was, that 
though this kept running in his head, and he found him¬ 
self planning and contriving it against his will, yet it 
concerned him very little. It was no more than the 
scurf of his skin, which was constantly shuffled off! 
But the notes of the flute came home to liis ears out of 
a different sphere from that he worked in, and suggested 
work for certain faculties which slumbered in him. 
They gently did away with the street, and the village, 
and the state in which he lived. A voice said to him, 
— Why do you stay here and live this mean moiling 
life, when a glorious existence is possible for you? 
Those same stars twinkle over other fields than these. — 
But how to come out of this condition and actually mi¬ 
grate thither ? All that he could think of was to practise 
some new austerity, to let his mind descend into his 
body and redeem it, and treat himself with ever in¬ 
creasing respect. 
