DOI issue:
Harland, Henry: Two sketches
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20196#0151
By Henry Harland 145
he envisaged these He was too tired to resent, to rebel. He
even found a certain sluggish satisfaction in recognising with what
unvarying harshness destiny had treated him, in resigning himself
to the unmerited.
He caught sight of his band, lying flat and inert upon the
brown leather arm of his cliair. His eyes rested on it, and for the
moment he forgot everything eise in a sort of torpid study of it.
How white it was, how thin, how withered j the nails were
parched into minute corrugations ; the veins stood out like dark
wires ; the skin hung loosely on it, and had a dry lustre : an old
man's hand. He gazed at it fixedly, tili his eyes closed and his
head feil forward. But he was not sleepy, he was only tired and
weak.
He raised his head with a start, and changed his position. He
feit cold ; but to endure the cold was easier than to get up, and
put something on, or go to bed.
How silent the world was ; how empty his room. An immense
feeling of solitude, of isolation, feil upon him. He was quite cut
off from the rest of humanity here. If anything should happen
to him, if he should need help of any sort, what could he do ?
Call out ? But who would hear ? At nine in the morning the
porter's wife would come with his tea. But if anything should
happen to him in the meantime ? There would be nothing for it
but to wait tili nine o'clock.
Ah, if he had married, if he had had children, ä wife, a home of
his own, instead of these desolate bachelor Chambers!
If he had married, indeed ! It was his sorrow's crown of sorrow
that he had not married, that he had not been able to marry, that
the girl he had wished to marry wouldn't have him. Failure ?
Success ? He could have accounted failure in other things a trifle,
he could have laughed at what the world calls failure, if Elinor
Lynd
he envisaged these He was too tired to resent, to rebel. He
even found a certain sluggish satisfaction in recognising with what
unvarying harshness destiny had treated him, in resigning himself
to the unmerited.
He caught sight of his band, lying flat and inert upon the
brown leather arm of his cliair. His eyes rested on it, and for the
moment he forgot everything eise in a sort of torpid study of it.
How white it was, how thin, how withered j the nails were
parched into minute corrugations ; the veins stood out like dark
wires ; the skin hung loosely on it, and had a dry lustre : an old
man's hand. He gazed at it fixedly, tili his eyes closed and his
head feil forward. But he was not sleepy, he was only tired and
weak.
He raised his head with a start, and changed his position. He
feit cold ; but to endure the cold was easier than to get up, and
put something on, or go to bed.
How silent the world was ; how empty his room. An immense
feeling of solitude, of isolation, feil upon him. He was quite cut
off from the rest of humanity here. If anything should happen
to him, if he should need help of any sort, what could he do ?
Call out ? But who would hear ? At nine in the morning the
porter's wife would come with his tea. But if anything should
happen to him in the meantime ? There would be nothing for it
but to wait tili nine o'clock.
Ah, if he had married, if he had had children, ä wife, a home of
his own, instead of these desolate bachelor Chambers!
If he had married, indeed ! It was his sorrow's crown of sorrow
that he had not married, that he had not been able to marry, that
the girl he had wished to marry wouldn't have him. Failure ?
Success ? He could have accounted failure in other things a trifle,
he could have laughed at what the world calls failure, if Elinor
Lynd