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Part II: The Explanations of Innocent Smith | Gilbert K. Chesterton | |
Chapter III. The Round Road; or, the Desertion Charge |
Page 11 of 13 |
"`Do you really mean,' I cried, `that you have come right round the world? Your speech is English, yet you are coming from the west.' "`My pilgrimage is not yet accomplished,' he replied sadly. `I have become a pilgrim to cure myself of being an exile.' "Something in the word `pilgrim' awoke down in the roots of my ruinous experience memories of what my fathers had felt about the world, and of something from whence I came. I looked again at the little pictured lantern at which I had not looked for fourteen years. "`My grandmother,' I said in a low tone, `would have said that we were all in exile, and that no earthly house could cure the holy home-sickness that forbids us rest.' "He was silent a long while, and watched a single eagle drift out beyond the Green Finger into the darkening void. "Then he said, `I think your grandmother was right,' and stood up leaning on his grassy pole. `I think that must be the reason,' he said--`the secret of this life of man, so ecstatic and so unappeased. But I think there is more to be said. I think God has given us the love of special places, of a hearth and of a native land, for a good reason.' "`I dare say,' I said. `What reason?' "`Because otherwise,' he said, pointing his pole out at the sky and the abyss, `we might worship that.' "`What do you mean?' I demanded. "`Eternity,' he said in his harsh voice, `the largest of the idols-- the mightiest of the rivals of God.' "`You mean pantheism and infinity and all that,' I suggested. |
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Manalive Gilbert K. Chesterton |
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