Non-Fiction > Books > London, 1887 - Virginibus Puerisque, and other papers

Ordered South 143
moments, the edge off his pleasures, and to
meet him wherever he goes with failure, and
the sense of want, and disenchantment of the
world and life.
It is not in such numbness of spirit only
that the life of the invalid resembles a pre-
mature old age. Those excursions that he
had promised himself to finish, prove too
long or too arduous for his feeble body ;
and the barrier-hills are as impassable as
ever. Many a white town that sits far out
on the promontory, many a comely fold of
wood on the mountain side, beckons and
allures his imagination day after day, and is
yet as inaccessible to his feet as the clefts
and gorges of the clouds. The sense of
distance grows upon him wonderfully ; and
after some feverish efforts and the fretful
uneasiness of the first few days, he falls
contentedly in with the restrictions of his
weakness. His narrow round becomes plea-
sant and familiar to him as the cell to a
contented prisoner. Just as he has fallen
already out of the mid race of active life, he