We mounted the five-mile ridge,--and, "Poor Robin," he said, "what of
him?" "Poor Robin sleeps in the Muses' graveyard," I laughed, "in the
soft gray ashes of my blazing hearth. One must live the life before he
tells the tale." "I loved his 'awakening,'" he replied, "and I have
often thought of it by myself. And will nothing come of him now?" "Who
can tell?" I said, looking hard off over the prairie. "The Muses must
care for their own. That 'awakening,'" I went on, after a moment of
wondering why the distant stream of the valley was called "the
Looking-glass," and learning only that such was its name, "was when
after the bookish torpor of his mind--you remember he called books his
opiates--he felt the beauty of the spring and the marvel of human
service come back on him like a flood. It was the growing consciousness
of how little of life is our own. Youth takes life for granted; the hand
that smoothed his pillow the long happy years, the springs that brought
new blossoms to his cheeks, the common words that martyr and patriot
have died to form on childish lips, and make them native there with
life's first breath, are natural to him as Christmas gifts, and bring no
obligation.
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