" The earth lay like one great emerald, ringed
and roofed with sapphire; blue sea, blue mountain, blue sky overhead.
There she lay, not sleeping, but basking in her quiet Sabbath joy, as
though her two great sisters, of the sea and air, had washed her weary
limbs with holy tears, and purged away the stains of last week's
sin and toil, and cooled her hot worn forehead with their pure
incense-breath, and folded her within their azure robes, and brooded
over her with smiles of pitying love, till she smiled back in answer,
and took heart and hope for next week's weary work.
Heart and hope for next week's work.--That was the sermon which it
preached to Tom Thurnall, as he stood there alone, a stranger and a
wanderer, like Ulysses of old; but, like him, self-helpful, cheerful,
fate-defiant. In one respect indeed, he knew less than Ulysses, and
was more of a heathen than he; for he knew not what Ulysses knew,
that a heavenly guide was with him in his wanderings; still less what
Ulysses knew not, that what he called the malicious sport of fortune
was, in truth, the earnest education of a father; but who will blame
him for getting strength and comfort from such merely natural founts,
or say that the impulse came from below, and not from above, which
made him say--
"Brave old world she is, after all, and right well made; and looks
right well to-day, in her go-to-meeting clothes; and plenty of room
and chance in her for a brave man to earn his bread, if he will but go
right on about his business, as the birds and the flowers do, instead
of peaking and pining over what people think of him, like that
miserable Briggs.
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