Book One - Chapter 33 In Which We Draw Yet Nearer to the End of This First Book

It is not my intention to chronicle all those minor happenings
that befell me, now or afterward, lest this history prove
wearisome to the reader (on the which head I begin to entertain
grave doubts already). Suffice it then that as the days grew
into weeks, and the weeks into months, by perseverance I became
reasonably expert at my trade, so that, some two months after my
meeting with Black George, I could shoe a horse with any smith in
the country.

But, more than this, the people with whom I associated day by
day--honest, loyal, and simple-hearted as they were, contented
with their lot, and receiving all things so unquestioningly and
thankfully, filled my life, and brought a great calm to a mind
that had, hitherto, been somewhat self-centred and troubled by
pessimistic doubts and fantastic dreams culled from musty pages.

What book is there to compare with the great Book of Life--whose
pages are forever a-turning, wherein are marvels and wonders
undreamed; things to weep over, and some few to laugh at, if one
but has eyes in one's head to see withal?

To walk through the whispering cornfields, or the long, green
alleys of the hop-gardens with Simon, who combines innkeeping
with farming, to hear him tell of fruit and flower, of bird and
beast, is better than to read the Georgics of Virgil.

To sit in the sunshine and watch the Ancient, pipe in mouth, to
hearken to his animadversions upon Life, and Death, and Humanity,
is better than the cynical wit of Rochefoucauld, or a page out of
honest old Montaigne.