As this last saying of his had no
meaning for me I turned to another matter and said to him:
"In any solitude contemplation is the chief business of the soul.
How, then, do you, who say you practise no rites, fill up your
loneliness here?"
In answer to this question he became more animated, spoke with a
sort of laugh in his voice, and seemed as though he were young again
and as though my question had aroused a whole lifetime of good
memories.
"My contemplation," he said, not without large gestures, "is this
wide and prosperous plain below: the great city with its harbour and
ceaseless traffic of ships, the roads, the houses building, the
fields yielding every year to husbandry, the perpetual activities of
men. I watch my kind and I glory in them, too far off to be
disturbed by the friction of individuals, yet near enough to have a
daily companionship in the spectacle of so much life. The mornings,
when they are all at labour, I am inspired by their energy; in the
noons and afternoons I feel a part of their patient and vigorous
endurance; and when the sun broadens near the rim of the sea at
evening, and all work ceases, I am filled with their repose. The
lights along the harbour front in the twilight and on into the
darkness remind me of them when I can no longer see their crowds and
movements, and so does the music which they love to play in their
recreation after the fatigues of the day, and the distant songs
which they sing far into the night.
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