Whether it suffered from this as did the house at
Dorchester which the man in the boat caused to wither in one night, is
more than I can tell.
The road led straight across the valley and approached the further
wall of hills. These I saw were pierced by one of the curious gaps
which are peculiar to limestone ranges. Water cuts them, and a torrent
ran through this one also. The road through it, gap though it was,
went up steeply, and the further valley was evidently higher than the
one I was leaving. It was already evening as I entered this narrow
ravine; the sun only caught the tops of the rock-walls. My fatigue was
very great, and my walking painful to an extreme, when, having come to
a place where the gorge was narrowest and where the two sides were
like the posts of a giant's stile, where also the fifth ridge of the
Jura stood up beyond me in the further valley, a vast shadow, I sat
down wearily and drew what not even my exhaustion could render
unremarkable.
While I was occupied sketching the slabs of limestone, I heard wheels
coming up behind me, and a boy in a waggon stopped and hailed me.
What the boy wanted to know was whether I would take a lift, and this
he said in such curious French that I shuddered to think how far I had
pierced into the heart of the hills, and how soon I might come to
quite strange people. I was greatly tempted to get into his cart, but
though I had broken so many of my vows one remained yet whole and
sound, which was that I would ride upon no wheeled thing. Remembering
this, therefore, and considering that the Faith is rich in
interpretation, I clung on to the waggon in such a manner that it did
all my work for me, and yet could not be said to be actually carrying
me. _Distinguo_. The essence of a vow is its literal meaning. The
spirit and intention are for the major morality, and concern Natural
Religion, but when upon a point of ritual or of dedication or special
worship a man talks to you of the Spirit and Intention, and complains
of the dryness of the Word, look at him askance. He is not far removed
from Heresy.
I knew a man once that was given to drinking, and I made up this rule
for him to distinguish between Bacchus and the Devil. To wit: that he
should never drink what has been made and sold since the
Reformation - I mean especially spirits and champagne. Let him (said I)
drink red wine and white, good beer and mead - if he could get
it - liqueurs made by monks, and, in a word, all those feeding,
fortifying, and confirming beverages that our fathers drank in old
time; but not whisky, nor brandy, nor sparkling wines, not absinthe,
nor the kind of drink called gin.
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