And, tell
me - what can it profit you to know these geographical details? Believe
me, I write them down for my own gratification, not yours.
I say a day without salt. A trudge. The air was ordinary, the colours
common; men, animals, and trees indifferent. Something had stopped
working.
Our energy also is from God, and we should never be proud of it, even
if we can cover thirty miles day after day (as I can), or bend a peony
in one's hand as could Frocot, the driver in my piece - a man you never
knew - or write bad verse very rapidly as can so many moderns. I say
our energy also is from God, and we should never be proud of it as
though it were from ourselves, but we should accept it as a kind of
present, and we should be thankful for it; just as a man should thank
God for his reason, as did the madman in the Story of the Rose, who
thanked God that he at least was sane though all the rest of the world
had recently lost their reason.
Indeed, this defaillance and breakdown which comes from time to time
over the mind is a very sad thing, but it can be made of great use to
us if we will draw from it the lesson that we ourselves are nothing.
Perhaps it is a grace. Perhaps in these moments our minds repose ...
Anyhow, a day without salt.
