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158
Adventures in Contentment
·
David Grayson
55
Only
a
short
time
ago
I
passed
an
open
doorway
in
the
town.
I
was
busy
with
errands,
my
mind
fully
engaged,
but
suddenly
I
caught
an
odour
from
somewhere
within
the
building
I
was
passing.
I
stopped!
It
was
as
if
in
that
moment
I
lost
twenty
years
of
my
life:
I
was
a
boy
again,
living
and
feeling
a
particular
instant
at
the
time
of
my
father's
death.
Every
emotion
of
that
occasion,
not
recalled
in
years,
returned
to
me
sharply
and
clearly
as
though
I
experienced
it
for
the
first
time.
It
was
a
peculiar
emotion:
the
first
time
I
had
ever
felt
the
oppression
of
space--can
I
describe
it?--the
utter
bigness
of
the
world
and
the
aloofness
of
myself,
a
little
boy,
within
it--now
that
my
father
was
gone.
It
was
not
at
that
moment
sorrow,
nor
remorse,
nor
love:
it
was
an
inexpressible
cold
terror--that
anywhere
I
might
go
in
the
world,
I
should
still
be
alone!
And
there
I
stood,
a
man
grown,
shaking
in
the
sunshine
with
that
old
boyish
emotion
brought
back
to
me
by
an
odour!
Often
and
often
have
I
known
this
strange
rekindling
of
dead
fires.
And
I
have
thought
how,
if
our
senses
were
really
perfect,
we
might
lose
nothing,
out
of
our
lives:
neither
sights,
nor
sounds,
nor
emotions:
a
sort
of
mortal
immortality.
Was
not
Shakespeare
great
because
he
lost
less
of
the
savings
of
his
senses
than
other
men?
What
a
wonderful
seer,
hearer,
smeller,
taster,
feeler,
he
must
have
been--and
how,
all
the
time,
his
mind
must
have
played
upon
the
gatherings
of
his
senses!
All
scenes,
all
men,
the
very
turn
of
a
head,
the
exact
sound
of
a
voice,
the
taste
of
food,
the
feel
of
the
world--all
the
emotions
of
his
life
must
he
have
had
there
before
him
as
he
wrote,
his
great
mind
playing
upon
them,
reconstructing,
re-creating
and
putting
them
down
hot
upon
his
pages.
There
is
nothing
strange
about
great
men;
they
are
like
us,
only
deeper,
higher,
broader:
they
think
as
we
do,
but
with
more
intensity:
they
suffer
as
we
do,
more
keenly:
they
love
as
we
do,
more
tenderly.
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