sunny bank, I began to ask myself whether I could really play the part
I had so long desired to play. Could I reconcile myself to seclusion
so entire? Would not this weight of utter silence grow heavier than I
could bear? It was not always June, I told myself, and there were days
of lashing rain, grey skies, and 'death-dumb autumn dripping' fog to
think of. The vision of lighted streets and bustling crowds, the warm
contiguity of numbers, the long lines of windows all aglow at evening,
the genial stir and tumult of congregated life, took masterful
possession of my mind. Could I bear to relinquish the familiar scene?
A thousand threads of use and habit bound me to it, each in itself as
light as gossamer, but the whole tough as cords of steel. I foresaw
that I had underestimated the ease of my deliverance. It would
require a strength of consistent resolution of which perhaps I was not
capable. It was but too likely that I should be one of those who put
their hand to the plough and look back, a reluctant recruit of a cause
that won my faith, but could not win my will. This would be not only
fatal to my peace, it would make me despicable in my own eyes, which is
the worst of all calamities that man can suffer.

Such a distress of mind was natural; yet I think that behind it all my
thought was firm and clear. What I had proposed to do for twenty years
I must do, or attempt to do, if I would retain my self-respect. I
might become despicable to myself by failure in my task, but I should
be much more despicable by never trying to accomplish it. In that
half-hour of meditation the die was cast. I had come to my predestined
battlefield. I must here be triumphant or defeated; in any case I must
attempt the conflict.

The decision restored, as by a stroke of magic, all my good spirits. I
examined my two cottages again with an eye less critical, more kindly,