Part One
Chapter 2: In Santa Croce with No Baedeker
(continued)
"The things of the universe. It is quite true. They don't."
"Oh, Mr. Emerson, whatever do you mean?"
In his ordinary voice, so that she scarcely realized he was
quoting poetry, he said:
"'From far, from eve and morning,
And yon twelve-winded sky,
The stuff of life to knit me
Blew hither: here am I'
George and I both know this, but why does it distress him? We
know that we come from the winds, and that we shall return to
them; that all life is perhaps a knot, a tangle, a blemish in the
eternal smoothness. But why should this make us unhappy? Let us
rather love one another, and work and rejoice. I don't believe in
this world sorrow."
Miss Honeychurch assented.
"Then make my boy think like us. Make him realize that by the
side of the everlasting Why there is a Yes--a transitory Yes if
you like, but a Yes."
Suddenly she laughed; surely one ought to laugh. A young man
melancholy because the universe wouldn't fit, because life was a
tangle or a wind, or a Yes, or something!
"I'm very sorry," she cried. "You'll think me unfeeling, but--but
--" Then she became matronly. "Oh, but your son wants employment.
Has he no particular hobby? Why, I myself have worries, but I can
generally forget them at the piano; and collecting stamps did no
end of good for my brother. Perhaps Italy bores him; you ought to
try the Alps or the Lakes."
The old man's face saddened, and he touched her gently with his
hand. This did not alarm her; she thought that her advice had
impressed him and that he was thanking her for it. Indeed, he no
longer alarmed her at all; she regarded him as a kind thing, but
quite silly. Her feelings were as inflated spiritually as they
had been an hour ago esthetically, before she lost Baedeker. The
dear George, now striding towards them over the tombstones,
seemed both pitiable and absurd. He approached, his face in the
shadow. He said:
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