The ground is dark, and as hard as if it were of cast iron. A
gloomy night rather, my dear. It looks as if there were something upon its
mind that made it sullenly thoughtful; but the stars are coming out one
after another overhead, and the sky will be all awake soon. A strange thing
the life that goes on all night, is it not? The life of owlets, and mice,
and beasts of prey, and bats, and stars," I said, with no very categorical
arrangement, "and dreams, and flowers that don't go to sleep like the rest,
but send out their scent all night long. Only those are gone now. There are
no scents abroad, not even of the earth in such a frost as this."
"Don't you think it looks sometimes, papa, as if God turned his back on the
world, or went farther away from it for a while?"
"Tell me a little more what you mean, Connie."
"Well, this night now, this dark, frozen, lifeless night, which you have
been describing to me, isn't like God at all--is it?"
"No, it is not. I see what you mean now."
"It is just as if he had gone away and said, 'Now you shall see what you
can do without me.'
"Something like that. But do you know that English people--at least I think
so--enjoy the changeful weather of their country much more upon the whole
than those who have fine weather constantly? You see it is not enough to
satisfy God's goodness that he should give us all things richly to enjoy,
but he must make us able to enjoy them as richly as he gives them.
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