The little light he possessed spread its beams so
narrowly, that frustrated belief was a curtain broad enough to
create for him the blackness of night.
His first movement after the shock had been to work in his loom;
and he went on with this unremittingly, never asking himself why,
now he was come to Raveloe, he worked far on into the night to
finish the tale of Mrs Osgood's table-linen sooner than she
expected- without contemplating beforehand the money she would put
into his hand for the work. He seemed to weave, like the spider,
from pure impulse, without reflection. Every man's work, pursued
steadily, tends in this way to become an end in itself, and so to
bridge over the loveless chasms of his life. Silas's hand satisfied
itself with throwing the shuttle, and his eye with seeing the little
squares in the cloth complete themselves under his effort. Then
there were the calls of hunger; and Silas, in his solitude, had to
provide his own breakfast, dinner and supper, to fetch his own water
from the well, and put his own kettle on the fire; and all these
immediate promptings helped, along with the weaving, to reduce his
life to the unquestioning activity of a spinning insect. He hated
the thought of the past; there was nothing that called out his love
and fellowship toward the strangers he had come amongst; and the
future was all dark, for there was no Unseen Love that cared for
him.
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