Great regrets, like great schemes,
are generally matured in the shade. If I had to choose the tombs where
most hopes and affections are buried, I should turn, I think, not to
those with the long inscriptions of questionable poetry or blameless
Latinity, but to where just the initials and a cross are cut on the
single stone.
The philosophical and poetical mourners hardly suffered much more than
Guy did during those months, and for long after too, though he was
always quite silent on the subject, and would speak cheerfully on others
now and then, and though, from the day that he parted with Constance to
that of his own death, his eyes were as dry as the skies over the Delta.
He used to lie for hours in that state of utter listlessness which
gives a reality to the sad old Eastern proverb, "Man is better sitting
than standing, lying down than sitting, dead than lying down."
With all this, however, his health improved every day. After the wild
life he had led lately, the perfect rest and the clear pure air
refreshed him marvelously. It had the effect of coming out of a room
heated and laden with smoke into the cool summer morning. His strength,
too, had returned almost completely.
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