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Adventures in Contentment
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David Grayson
1
[*Note:
Please
Credit
to
Sjaani]
ADVENTURES
IN
CONTENTMENT
David
Grayson
I
"THE
BURDEN
OF
THE
VALLEY
OF
VISION"
I
came
here
eight
years
ago
as
the
renter
of
this
farm,
of
which
soon
afterward
I
became
the
owner.
The
time
before
that
I
like
to
forget.
The
chief
impression
it
left,
upon
my
memory,
now
happily
growing
indistinct,
is
of
being
hurried
faster
than
I
could
well
travel.
From
the
moment,
as
a
boy
of
seventeen,
I
first
began
to
pay
my
own
way,
my
days
were
ordered
by
an
inscrutable
power
which
drove
me
hourly
to
my
task.
I
was
rarely
allowed
to
look
up
or
down,
but
always
forward,
toward
that
vague
Success
which
we
Americans
love
to
glorify.
My
senses,
my
nerves,
even
my
muscles
were
continually
strained
to
the
utmost
of
attainment.
If
I
loitered
or
paused
by
the
wayside,
as
it
seems
natural
for
me
to
do,
I
soon
heard
the
sharp
crack
of
the
lash.
For
many
years,
and
I
can
say
it
truthfully,
I
never
rested.
I
neither
thought
nor
reflected.
I
had
no
pleasure,
even
though
I
pursued
it
fiercely
during
the
brief
respite
of
vacations.
Through
many
feverish
years
I
did
not
work:
I
merely
produced.
The
only
real
thing
I
did
was
to
hurry
as
though
every
moment
were
my
last,
as
though
the
world,
which
now
seems
so
rich
in
everything,
held
only
one
prize
which
might
be
seized
upon
before
I
arrived.
Since
then
I
have
tried
to
recall,
like
one
who
struggles
to
restore
the
visions
of
a
fever,
what
it
was
that
I
ran
to
attain,
or
why
I
should
have
borne
without
rebellion
such
indignities
to
soul
and
body.
That
life
seems
now,
of
all
illusions,
the
most
distant
and
unreal.
It
is
like
the
unguessed
eternity
before
we
are
born:
not
of
concern
compared
with
that
eternity
upon
which
we
are
now
embarked.
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