noons
I ca n't help thinking that all that talk I heard in Berlin , all that restlessness and desire to hit out at somebody , anybody , -- the knock-him-down-and-rob him idea they seemed obsessed with , was simply because it was drawing near the holiday time of year , and every one was overworked and nervy after a year 's being cooped up in offices ; and then the great heat came and finished them . They were cross , like overtired children , cross and quarrelsome . How cross I was too , tormented by those flies ! After this month , when everybody has been away at the sea and in the forests , they 'll be different , and as full of kindliness and gentleness as these gentle kind skies are , and the morning and the evening , and the placid noons . I do n't believe anybody who has watched cows pasturing in golden meadows , as Bernd and I have for hours this afternoon , or heard water lapping among reeds , or seen eagles shining far up in the blue above the pine trees , and drawn in with every breath the sweetness , the extraordinary warm sweetness , of this summer in places in the forests and by the sea , -- I do n't believe people who had done that could for at least another year want to quarrel and fight . And by the time they did want to , having got jumpy in the course of months of uninterrupted herding together , it will be time for them to go for holidays again , back to the blessed country to be soothed and healed . And each year we shall grow wiser , each year more grown-up , less like naughty children , nearer to God .