I Will Push On Till I Am At The End Of My Tether,
Then I Will Find A Wood And Sleep.' Within Four Miles My Strength
Abandoned Me.
I was not even so far down the lake as to have lost the
sound of the band at Lugano floating up the still water, when I was
under an imperative necessity for repose.
It was perhaps ten o'clock,
and the sky was open and glorious with stars. I climbed up a bank on
my right, and searching for a place to lie found one under a tree near
a great telegraph pole. Here was a little parched grass, and one could
lie there and see the lake and wait for sleep. It was a benediction to
stretch out all supported by the dry earth, with my little side-bag
for pillow, and to look at the clear night above the hills, and to
listen to the very distant music, and to wonder whether or not, in
this strange southern country, there might not be snakes gliding about
in the undergrowth. Caught in such a skein of influence I was soothed
and fell asleep.
For a little while I slept dreamlessly.
Just so much of my living self remained as can know, without
understanding, the air around. It is the life of trees. That
under-part, the barely conscious base of nature which trees and
sleeping men are sunk in, is not only dominated by an immeasurable
calm, but is also beyond all expression contented.
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