The Highland monthly - National Library of Scotland

7i6 The Highland Monthly.
hers, was to be life long and bitter. Strange that it should
be needed in one who was himself a vivid illustration of
the enduring power of a love which was practically hope-
less. But who more grossly blind in these matters than
self-sufficient man ?
It was only now that David realised the full depth and
breadth of his passion. What a dark, dismal mockery was
the life that remained ? He could have faced bravely
But
Flora's marriage, for at least she would still be visible to
him ; and she knew he loved her ! that
death ! and
just at the moment when hope had glimmered kindlier and
brighter than it had ever done before ! He felt crushed
and unhinged ; he shuddered at the long vista of years
which lay ahead of his youth.
There are situations when the petty character of life
appeals to one with demoralising force. As he sat there
with rigid face, trying to contemplate the future, his
thoughts pursued this train, and darkened with the deepen-
ing twilight. He might study and become a great scholar :
what then ? Nothing more than this, that after he had
mastered the knowledge which people had been mastering
in rotation for centuries, he would be humiliated with the
littleness of it, and the worthlessness of it in contrast with
the great Unknown !
What was life itself— life in cur body? Would science
ever be able to do more than quote from the Book of
Books, " and God breathed into man's nostrils the breath
of life?" What was infinitude? Simply an idea that
paralysed the brain. What of his favourite study, the
philosophy of this, that, and the other school ? Nothing
more than the fictions of reason in conflict.
Life was eating and drinking, a little pleasure, and more
sorrow, disease, and—Death ! And then he paused—who
does not at this, the awfullest of all the mysteries ? Weary
of life's futility as a solver of its own problems, a great
Scottish lawyer welcomed death for the knowledge it would
bring to him. An end to the flippant question : Is life