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158
Adventures in Contentment
·
David Grayson
82
"You
have
enjoyed
the
service,"
she
said
softly.
"Yes,"
I
said.
"It
was
a
good
sermon,"
she
said.
"Was
it?"
I
replied.
IX
THE
TRAMP
I
have
had
a
new
and
strange
experience--droll
in
one
way,
grotesque
in
another
and
when
everything
is
said,
tragic:
at
least
an
adventure.
Harriet
looks
at
me
accusingly,
and
I
have
had
to
preserve
the
air
of
one
deeply
contrite
now
for
two
days
(no
easy
accomplishment
for
me!),
even
though
in
secret
I
have
smiled
and
pondered.
How
our
life
has
been
warped
by
books!
We
are
not
contented
with
realities:
we
crave
conclusions.
With
what
ardour
our
minds
respond
to
real
events
with
literary
deductions.
Upon
a
train
of
incidents,
as
unconnected
as
life
itself,
we
are
wont
to
clap
a
booky
ending.
An
instinctive
desire
for
completeness
animates
the
human
mind
(a
struggle
to
circumscribe
the
infinite).
We
would
like
to
have
life
"turn
out"--but
it
doesn't--it
doesn't.
Each
event
is
the
beginning
of
a
whole
new
genealogy
of
events.
In
boyhood
I
remember
asking
after
every
story
I
heard:
"What
happened
next?"
for
no
conclusion
ever
quite
satisfied
me--even
when
the
hero
died
in
his
own
gore.
I
always
knew
there
was
something
yet
remaining
to
be
told.
The
only
sure
conclusion
we
can
reach
is
this:
Life
changes.
And
what
is
more
enthralling
to
the
human
mind
than
this
splendid,
boundless,
coloured
mutability!--life
in
the
making?
How
strange
it
is,
then,
that
we
should
be
contented
to
take
such
small
parts
of
it
as
we
can
grasp,
and
to
say,
"This
is
the
true
explanation."
By
such
devices
we
seek
to
bring
infinite
existence
within
our
finite
egoistic
grasp.
We
solidify
and
define
where
solidification
means
loss
of
interest;
and
loss
of
interest,
not
years,
is
old
age.
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