Yet she, so frail, so timid, was the one
member of the community who had set herself to do the work of
a giant--that of championing all ill-used and suffering
creatures, wild or tame, holding a protecting shield over them
against the innate brutality of the people. She had been
abused and mocked and jeered at by many, while others had
regarded her action with an amused smile or else with a cold
indifference. But eventually some, for very shame, had been
drawn to her side, and a change in the feeling of the people
had resulted; domestic animals were treated better, and it was
no longer universally believed that all wild animals,
especially those with wings, existed only that men might amuse
themselves by killing and wounding and trapping and caging and
persecuting them in various other ways.
The sight of that burning and shining spirit in its frail
tenement--for did I not actually see her spirit and the very
soul of her in those eyes?--was the last of the unforgotten
experiences I had at that place which had startled and
repelled me with its ugliness.
But, no, there was one more, marvellous as any--the experience
of a day of days, one of those rare days when nature appears
to us spiritualized and is no longer nature, when that which
had transfigured this visible world is in us too, and it
becomes possible to believe--it is almost a conviction--that
the burning and shining spirit seen and recognized in one
among a thousand we have known is in all of us and in all
things.
Pages:
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76