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137
The Solitary Summer
·
Elizabeth Von Arnim
107
A
man
once
made
it
a
reproach
that
I
should
be
so
happy,
and
told
me
everybody
has
crosses,
and
that
we
live
in
a
vale
of
woe.
I
mentioned
moles
as
my
principal
cross,
and
pointed
to
the
huge
black
mounds
with
which
they
had
decorated
the
tennis-court,
but
I
could
not
agree
to
the
vale
of
woe,
and
could
not
be
shaken
in
my
belief
that
the
world
is
a
dear
and
lovely
place,
with
everything
in
it
to
make
us
happy
so
long
as
we
walk
humbly
and
diet
ourselves.
He
pointed
out
that
sorrow
and
sickness
were
sure
to
come,
and
seemed
quite
angry
with
me
when
I
suggested
that
they
too
could
be
borne
perhaps
with
cheerfulness.
"And
have
not
even
such
things
their
sunny
side?"
I
exclaimed.
"When
I
am
steeped
to
the
lips
in
diseases
and
doctors,
I
shall
at
least
have
something
to
talk
about
that
interests
my
women
friends,
and
need
not
sit
as
I
do
now
wondering
what
I
shall
say
next
and
wishing
they
would
go."
He
replied
that
all
around
me
lay
misery,
sin,
and
suffering,
and
that
every
person
not
absolutely
blinded
by
selfishness
must
be
aware
of
it
and
must
realise
the
seriousness
and
tragedy
of
existence.
I
asked
him
whether
my
being
miserable
and
discontented
would
help
any
one
or
make
him
less
wretched;
and
he
said
that
we
all
had
to
take
up
our
burdens.
I
assured
him
I
would
not
shrink
from
mine,
though
I
felt
secretly
ashamed
of
it
when
I
remembered
that
it
was
only
moles,
and
he
went
away
with
a
grave
face
and
a
shaking
head,
back
to
his
wife
and
his
eleven
children.
I
heard
soon
afterwards
that
a
twelfth
baby
had
been
born
and
his
wife
had
died,
and
in
dying
had
turned
her
face
with
a
quite
unaccountable
impatience
away
from
him
and
to
the
wall;
and
the
rumour
of
his
piety
reached
even
into
my
garden,
and
how
he
had
said,
as
he
closed
her
eyes,
"It
is
the
Will
of
God."
He
was
a
missionary.
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