I Planted Myself Every Here Under The Trees In The Fields And Footpaths,
By Day And By Night, And That
Is why I have never put myself into the
charge of the many wheeled creatures that move on the rails
And gone back
thither, lest I might find the trees look small, and the elms mere
switches, and the fields shrunken, and the brooks dry, and no voice
anywhere. Nothing but my own ghost to meet me by every hedge. I fear lest
I should find myself more dead than all the rest And verily I wish, could
it be without injury to others, that the sand of the desert would rise
and roll over and obliterate the place for ever and ever.
I need not wish, for I have been conversing again with learned folk about
this place, and they begin to draw my view to certain considerations.
These very learned men point out to me a number of objections, for the
question they sceptically put is this: are you quite certain that such a
village ever existed? In the first place, they say, you have only got one
other witness beside yourself, and she is aged, and has defective sight;
and really we don't know what to say to accepting such evidence
unsupported. Secondly, John Brown cannot be found to bear testimony.
Thirdly, there are no ghosts there; that can be demonstrated. It renders
a case unsubstantial to introduce these flimsy spirits. Fourthly, the map
is lost, and it might be asked was there ever such a map?
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 391 of 394
Words from 104731 to 104990
of 105669
