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The Altar Fire by Arthur Christopher Benson
page 93 of 282 (32%)
women live in life, but man lives in work. Man DOES, woman IS.
There is the difference."

We drew near the village. The red sun was sinking over the plain, a
ball of fire; the mist was creeping up from the low-lying fields;
the moon hung, like a white nail-paring, high in the blue sky. We
went to the little inn, where we had been before. We ordered tea--
we were to return by train--and Maud being tired, I left her, while
I took a turn in the village, and explored the remains of an old
manor-house, which I had seen often from the road. I was
intolerably restless. I found a lane which led to the fields behind
the manor. It was a beautiful scene. To the left of me ran the
great plain brimmed with mist; the manor, with its high gables and
chimney-stacks, stood up over an orchard, surrounded by a high,
ancient brick wall, with a gate between tall gate-posts surmounted
by stone balls. The old pasture lay round the house, and there were
many ancient elms and sycamores forming a small park, in the boughs
of which the rooks, who were now streaming home from the fields,
were clamorous. I found myself near a chain of old fish-ponds, with
thorn-thickets all about them; and here the old house stood up
against a pure evening sky, rusty red below, melting into a pure
green above. My heart went out in wonder at the thought of the
unknown lives lived in this place, the past joys, the forgotten
sorrows. What did it mean for me, the incredible and caressing
beauty of the scene? Not only did it not comfort me, but it seemed
to darken the gloom of my own unhappy mind. Suddenly, as with a
surge of agony, my misery flowed in upon me. I clutched the rail
where I stood, and bowed my head down in utter wretchedness. There
came upon me, as with a sort of ghastly hopefulness, the temptation
to leave it all, to put my case back into God's hands. Perhaps it
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