initial commit of ebook 27795HEADmain

208 files changed, 12698 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6833f05
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+* text=auto
+*.txt text
+*.md text
diff --git a/27795-8.txt b/27795-8.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..aa6706b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-8.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,3540 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Apologia Diffidentis, by W. Compton Leith
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Apologia Diffidentis
+
+Author: W. Compton Leith
+
+Release Date: January 13, 2009 [EBook #27795]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK APOLOGIA DIFFIDENTIS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Meredith Bach and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ [Transcriber's Note:
+
+  Greek words in this text have been transliterated into English and are
+  found within { } brackets.]
+
+
+
+
+          Apologia Diffidentis
+
+
+
+
+          _BY THE SAME AUTHOR_
+
+          Sirenica
+
+
+
+
+          Apologia Diffidentis
+
+                  By
+           W. Compton Leith
+
+         London: John Lane, The
+         Bodley Head. New York:
+         John Lane Company
+               MCMXVII
+
+
+
+
+           _Third Edition_
+
+     _Printed in Great Britain
+  by Turnbull & Spears, Edinburgh_
+
+
+
+
+              To One
+ Whose Friendship is beyond Desert
+         and above Requital
+
+
+
+
+Apologia Diffidentis
+
+    "I am naturally bashful; nor hath conversation, age,
+    or travel been able to effront or enharden me."
+
+                                       SIR THOMAS BROWNE
+
+
+In the matter of avowals the diffident never speak if they can write.
+That is why my apology for a furtive existence is here set down in
+solitude instead of being told face to face. You have borne so many
+years with my unresponsive and incomprehensible ways that shame at last
+constrains me to this poor defence; for I must either justify myself in
+your sight, or go far away where even your kindness cannot reach me. The
+first alternative is hard, but the second too grievous for impaired
+powers of endurance; I must therefore find what expression I may, and
+tell you how my life has been beshrewed ever since, a boy of twelve, I
+first incurred the obloquy of being shy. The word slips easily from the
+pen though the lips refuse to frame it; for I think most men would
+rather plead guilty to a vice than to this weakness.
+
+A doom of reticence is upon all our shy confraternity, and we seldom
+make confidences even to each other. It is only at rarest intervals that
+the spell is lifted, by silent sympathy, by a smile, by a tear, by I
+know not what. At such times our souls are like those deep pools of the
+shore, only open to the sky at lowest tides of still summer days, only
+to be approached across long stretches of wet sand and slippery shelves
+of rock. In their depths are delicate fronded seaweeds and shells tinted
+with hues of sundawn; but to see them you must bend low over the
+surface, which no lightest breath must furrow, or the vision is gone.
+
+Few of the busy toilers of the world will leave the firm sands to see so
+little; but sometimes one weary of keen life will stray aside, and
+oftener a child will come splashing across the beach to peer down with
+artless curiosity and delight. Then the jealous ocean returns, and the
+still clear depths are confused once more with refluent waters; soon the
+waves are tossing above the quiet spot, and the child is gone home to
+sleep and forget. I cannot have you with me at these still hours of
+revelation; I must tell my tale as best I can with such success as
+fortune may bestow.
+
+I shall say nothing of the miseries which embittered the life of the
+diffident boy. But I cannot pass in silence the deeper trouble of
+earliest manhood, when my soul first awoke to the dread that though
+other clouds might drift westward and dissolve, one would impend over me
+for ever. It was at the university that this vague misgiving crept upon
+me like a chill mist, until the hopes and aspirations of youth were one
+by one extinguished, as to a sailor putting out to sea the comfortable
+harbour lights vanish in the wracks of a tempestuous winter morning. I
+turned my face away from the gracious young life amidst which I moved,
+like a man possessed of a dark secret to his undoing. My heart, yet
+eager for the joy of living and yearning for affection, was daily
+starved of its need as by a power of deliberate and feline cruelty; and
+with every expansive impulse instantly restrained by this dæmonic
+force, I was left at last unresponsive as a maltreated child, who flings
+his arms round no one, but shrinks back into his own world of solitary
+fancies.
+
+I think there is no misery so great as that of youth surrounded by all
+opportunities for wholesome fellowship, endowed with natural faculties
+for enjoyment, yet repressed and thwarted at every turn by invincible
+self-consciousness and mistrust: surely no lost opportunities of manhood
+leave such aching voids as these. In the spring-time of life to feel day
+by day the slow erosion of the power of joy is of all pains most
+poignant; out of it grow anxieties, premature despairs, incongruous with
+fresh cheeks and a mind not yet mature. This misery was mine for those
+four years which to most men are the happiest of a whole career, but to
+me at every retrospect seem so beset with gloomy shadows that could I
+live my life again, I would not traverse them once more for all the gold
+of Ophir.
+
+At first I writhed and strained in my bonds, and sometimes would make
+timid advances to the generous young hearts around me. But the tension
+always proved too sore; I never maintained the ground I had won, and
+with a perilous fatalism more and more readily accepted what I deemed
+inevitable failure. There were among them, I doubt it not now,
+Samaritans who would have tended my bruised limbs; but then they all
+seemed to be gliding over the black ice, too happy to stay and lift up
+the fallen. And bruised though I was, I still rose time and again and
+moved painfully among them, so that theirs was no culpable or merciless
+neglect.
+
+Yet the end for me was illimitable dreariness; and like Archie in _Weir
+of Hermiston_, I seemed abroad in a world from which every hope of
+intimacy was banished. And as with every month the hopelessness of
+resistance was made plainer and plainer, there came upon me the
+recklessness of the condemned man who jests or blasphemes to hide his
+ruth. Overwrought continually by forebodings of coming pain, unstrung by
+strange revulsions, I would pass from burning wrath to cold despair, a
+most petulant and undisciplined sufferer. Uniting in one person the
+physical exuberance of youth and the melancholy of disillusioned
+manhood, I was deprived of the balanced energy proper to either age, and
+kept up a braggart courage with the headiest wine of literature. I could
+not bear the bland homilies of the preachers, but ranged myself with the
+apostles of rebellion who blew imperious trumpet blasts before the walls
+of ordered life.
+
+Verily the violence of the blasts was sometimes such that the ramparts
+should have fallen down; and often in my exaltation I already saw them
+totter, as I strode along reciting the dithyrambs of men who like myself
+could find scarce a responsive heart-beat in all this throbbing world.
+Above all I gloried in the declamations of Queen Mab, which sanctioned
+by high poetic authority the waste of my affections and my moody
+defiance of life's most salutary law. With these upon my lips I roamed,
+an absurd pathetic figure, amid the haunts of the Scholar Gipsy, and the
+wayward upland breezes conspired with my truant moods. And while I sat
+by my lamp late into the night, I turned the pages of pessimists and
+cynics, for no principles are dearer to a man than those which allow him
+to profess contempt for the benefits which he cannot enjoy.
+
+Yet by seeking amid such simples a balm for wounded pride, I did not
+really deceive myself, but lived as a sophist rather than a philosopher.
+And all the while I was digging graves for my better instincts, until my
+sexton's mood, confining me within churchyard walls, gave me over almost
+entirely to the company of mental bats and owls. The danger of it all
+was that though I was yet youthful, and should have been still pliant as
+a sapling, I was fostering the growth of those habits which, like rings
+in the grain, are the signature of unyielding years. Naturalists say
+that a bullfinch fed only on hempseed gradually loses his fair plumage
+and becomes black as a raven: so my soul, nourished on thoughts of
+rebellion, put off its bright and diverse enthusiasms and was clothed in
+the dark garment of despair.
+
+When the long-desired hour of release came, and I was free to turn my
+back upon the spires of my prison city, I had already plumbed an abyss
+of misery. The very thought of life in the conflict of the world was
+abhorrent; and if I had been of the Roman Church I should have become a
+Benedictine and sought a lettered and cloistered peace. I despaired of
+finding anywhere upon earth the profound quietude, the absolute
+detachment, when a chance occasion seemed to crown my desire, and blind
+to all warnings of disillusion, I suddenly set sail for what I then
+thought might be a permanent sojourn in the East.
+
+Within two months' time the whole environment of my life was changed,
+and I was established on a lonely plantation set high upon a range of
+hills whose slopes were clothed with primeval forests verging to a
+tropical sea. My home, a white-walled, red-roofed bungalow with a great
+columned verandah like a temple's peristyle, lay in the issue of an
+upper valley threaded by a clear stream, whence you may look far down
+over rolling plains to an horizon lost in the shimmering heat of noon.
+Immediately to the east rose the cone of a great solitary hill, always
+outlined against the sky with a majestic isolation that lent it an
+almost personal existence, and at the birth of every day bearing the orb
+of the rising sun upon its wooded shoulder. Round about, in scattered
+villages of thatched and mud-walled huts, dwelled brown men of ancient
+pagan ways, men who neither knew progress nor set any price upon time.
+
+There I entered upon a wholly new existence as remote from all the
+social trials which beset shyness as if it were passed in some island of
+the uttermost sea. I had escaped from a harrying pursuit; I was free;
+and to the bliss of this recovered liberty I abandoned myself, without
+attempting to justify my flight to conscience or forming any scheme for
+future years. Like a deer which has eluded the hounds, I yearned only
+for rest and long oblivion of the chase; I wanted to live woodland days
+until, all the strain and panic of the past forgotten, I might rise
+refreshed and see a new way clear before me.
+
+And this first abandonment was a time of ecstasy. The long tranquil days
+were crowned by nights of peace yet more desired. I lay beneath the
+verandah and watched the stars in their splendour, not the pin-points of
+cold light that pierce our misty western heavens, but bright orbs in
+innumerable companies hovering upon the tranced earth. Night after night
+I saw the incomparable vision; month after month the moon rose slowly
+over the high wall of the jungle, first a great globe imminent upon the
+trees, next soaring remote through the upper heavens, waning at last to
+a sphere of pale unquickening light. I would lie thus for hours
+motionless, with lulled mind, until the breeze forerunning the dawn, or
+the quavering wail of the jackal, recalled the startled thought to the
+prison bonds of self.
+
+With the gentle lapse of months all these impersonal influences took
+dominion over me and gave me a quiet happiness never known before. The
+nights brought the greater light; but the days too had their glories. I
+would climb the rugged sides of the mountain, and emerging into a colder
+world sit beneath an overhanging rock and see the hot air quivering
+over leagues of plain; while in the nearer distance, far down beneath my
+feet, the rice-fields shone like emerald and the palm-fringed pools like
+shields of silver. Or I would stretch myself at early afternoon on the
+close-cropped grass on the jungle-edge, and watch the opposite sky take
+on an ever-deeper blue against the setting sun behind me. Often at such
+times I would hear a rushing in the highest branches, and turning very
+silently, see the outposts of a troop of monkeys peering down through
+the gleaming foliage. Then, if I moved, neither head nor limb, others
+would come, and yet others, leaping from branch to branch and plunging
+down from higher to lower levels like divers cleaving a deep green sea;
+until at last some slightest involuntary movement of mine would put the
+whole host to flight, and greybeards, young warriors, camp followers and
+mothers with their children on their backs would spring precipitate from
+tree to tree, screaming and gibbering like Homer's sapless dead. Then,
+when the stars rushed out and the darkness came on apace, it was sweet
+to wander home along those paths so dear to primitive men in all
+countries, narrow paths and sinuous, smoothed by the footfalls of
+centuries, winding patiently round every obstacle and never breaking
+through after the brutal manner of civilization. The fire-flies gleamed
+in the brushwood on either hand, and from every side rose that
+all-pervading hum of busy insects through which the tropic forest is
+never still.
+
+Amid these surroundings, so peaceful and so new, my soul was stilled to
+that {galênê} or ocean-calm which the old Greek philosopher found the
+highest good for man. And month by month the mere material side of life
+grew of less moment; the body fretted the spirit less, but often seemed
+a tissue of gossamer lightness through which it could pass at will, as
+the breeze through the gleaming spider-webs upon the bushes at dawn.
+There were times when the ideal of the mystic seemed well-nigh
+accomplished, when my body might almost have been abandoned by the soul
+for hours upon end. The words of Emerson seemed to be fulfilled: "By
+being assimilated to the original soul by whom and after whom all things
+subsist, the soul of man does then easily flow into all things and all
+things flow into it: they mix; and he is present and sympathetic with
+their structure and law."
+
+As I write now amid the roar of London traffic, I well believe that to
+men who have never bathed in eastern moonlight, the description will
+sound hyperbolical and false. But when I think of those old days, how
+serene they were, how apart, I let the words stand: I am not artist
+enough to give them a more plausible simplicity. All conditions that a
+recluse might crave seemed now to be fulfilled for my benefit. The
+virgin forests and great hills were a perpetual joy, but there was a
+tranquil pleasure in the plantation which man's labour had reclaimed
+from these. That was a meet place indeed for the meditation of a quiet
+hour, and no more grateful refuge can be conceived than such a shady
+grove at the height of noon. You must not fancy an expanse of dusty land
+lined with prim rows of plants in the formal style of a nursery garden;
+but, spread over the lower slopes of the valleys, spacious woods of
+clean, grey-stemmed trees, with overarching branches thinned to cast a
+diaphanous shade over the sea of lustrous dark leaves below. The shrubs
+stood waist-high in serried, commingling ranks, their dark burnished
+leaves gleaming here and there in the sifted rays that found their way
+down through the vaults of foliage; the groves of Daphne had no more
+perfect sheen.
+
+I learned to feel for this gracious place a love only second to that of
+the wilder jungle; for nature thus tamed to work side by side with man
+loses indeed her austerer charm, but not her calm and dignity: these she
+brings with her always to be a glory to the humblest associate of her
+labour. Often as I pruned a tree, or stripped its stem of suckers, I
+felt the soothing, quickening influence of this partnership, and my
+thoughts turned to others who had known a like satisfaction and relief;
+to Obermann forgetting his melancholy in the toil of the vintage,
+plucking the ripe clusters and wheeling them away as if he had never
+known the malady of thought; or to Edward Fitzgerald out with the dawn
+among his roses at Little Grange.
+
+Amid these high dreams and simple occupations, time seemed to glide away
+like a brimming stream, and the only events that marked the passing of
+the years were wayfarings through the country-side, sojournings in
+strange, slumbrous native towns, expeditions of wider range to old white
+ports of Malabar still dreaming of the forgotten heroes whose story
+Camoens sang. After many such journeys the genius of this oriental land
+seemed to travel with us, so familiar did every aspect of this simple
+Indian life become. Our equipment was of set purpose the patriarchal
+gear of native fashion; narrow carts with great lumbering wheels were
+covered by matting arched upon bent saplings, and had within a depth of
+clean rice-straw on which at night mattresses were spread. Beneath each
+yoke went a pair of milk-white oxen with large mild eyes and pendulous
+dewlaps, great beasts of a fine Homeric dignity and worthy of
+Nausicaa's wain. They swung along with a leisurely rolling gait; and if
+their silent feet moved too slowly, the sleepy brown-skinned driver,
+crouching on the pole between them, would shame them into speed by
+scornful words about their ancestry, more prompt than blows in their
+effect on beasts of ancient and sacred lineage.
+
+We travelled at night or in the freshness of early morning, regardless
+of the hours, unfretted by the tyrannous remembrances of appointed
+times. Milestones passed slowly, like things drifting, which ask no
+attention, and hardly perceived in the moment of their disappearance,
+serve only to enrich and replenish the mind's voluptuous repose. It was
+a joy to lie drowsily back upon the straw, awaiting sleep and looking
+out upon the stars through the open back of the cart, while the
+fire-flies darted across the feathery clusters of bamboo, and the
+cradling sound of wheels and footfalls called slumber up out of the
+darkness. And it was equal delight to spring from the cart at first
+flush of dawn, and see some far blue hill in the east lined like a
+cloud with broadening gold, until the resistless sun rose a full orb
+above it, flooding the grey plains and making the leaves of the banyans
+gleam with the lustre of old bronze. But though the sun was come, we
+would often press on for yet three hours, through belts of
+squirrel-haunted wood, beside great sheets of water with wild-duck
+floating far amidst, and borders starred with yellow nenuphars, across
+groves of mango and plantain trees into landscapes of tiny terraced
+plots, where the vivid green rice-blades stood thick in the well-soaked
+earth, and bowed brown figures diverted to their roots the thread-like
+rivulet from the great brown tank above.
+
+Here would be a wayside shrine, a simple stuccoed portico with columns
+streaked in red, enclosing the sacred emblems with their offerings of
+golden marigold, and bearing upon each corner, carved in dark grey
+stone, Siva's recumbent bull. Here millet fields, with hedges of blue
+aloe or euphorbias like seven-branched candlesticks, announced a place
+of habitation; soon the village itself appeared, a long irregular line
+of white-walled houses roofed with thatch or tile, and here and there
+greater dwellings with carved balconies and barred verandahs, behind
+which impassive white-robed figures sat and seemed to ponder upon life.
+On the right, perhaps, would be a shop all open to the road, where,
+cross-legged upon a kind of daïs, the merchant sat among his piled
+wares, unenterprising and unsolicitous, serenely confident in the
+balance-sheet of fate. On the left, in a shady corner, a barber would be
+bending over a half-shaven skull. Everywhere children of every shade
+from yellow to deep umber would be playing solemnly about the ways,
+turning upon the passing stranger their grave, unfathomable eyes.
+
+Beyond the village there would be a rest-house maintained for the use of
+wayfaring white men, and here we would repose through the heat of the
+day, reclining with a book in rooms shaded with shutters, or with fine
+mats drenched from hour to hour with cooling sprays of water. Then with
+the sun's decline we would set out once more, meeting a file of
+blue-robed women erect as caryatides as they came up from the well,
+each bearing upon her back-thrown head a water-jar of earthen or brazen
+ware, staying her burden with a shapely brown arm circled with bangles
+of glass and silver. In the short hours before the darkness, we would
+encounter all the types of men which go to make up Indian country
+life--the red-slippered banker jogging on his pony beneath a white
+umbrella, the vendor of palm-wine urging a donkey almost lost beneath
+the swollen skins, barefooted ryots with silent feet and strident
+tongues, crowds of boys and children driving buffaloes and cows, all
+coming homeward from their labour with the evening.
+
+And when these had gone by, and we rolled on through the scented air of
+the silent open country, we would come perhaps in the gathering darkness
+to a great river lapping and murmuring through the blackened rocks above
+the ford, and shining like a glorious path in the light of the rising
+moon. Silently, high above the banks, there would flit through the still
+air bands of flying foxes awakened for their nightly raid upon the
+plantain groves; and in the shadows of the further bank there would
+gleam a sudden light, or the echoes of a hailing voice would rise and
+then die away. Steeped in the poetry of all these things we would cross
+and emerge upon the opposite slope to begin the pilgrimage of the night
+anew. So to live tranquil days and unfretful, moving in quiet through a
+still land rich in old tradition--this was an experience of peace which
+no dreams of imagination could surpass, a freshness of joy penetrative
+as the fragrance of unplucked wayside flowers.
+
+Sometimes we would set out on longer journeys by land and sea, crossing
+the wooded ghats and descending to some old port of historic name,
+Cochin or Mangalore or Calicut, white places of old memory, sleeping by
+the blue waves as if no Vasco de Gama had ever come sailing up out of
+the West to disturb their enchanted slumber. The approach to these
+dreamy shores was dark and tumultuous, as if nature had set an
+initiation of contrasting toil before the enjoyment of that light and
+peace. It followed the bed of a mountain stream, which began in a mere
+pleat of the hills, tumbling often in white cascades, and enduring no
+boat upon its waters until half its course was run. But here it
+challenged man to essay a fall; for where it burst its way over rocky
+slopes were channels jeopardous and hardly navigable, sequences of
+foaming rapids, races of wild water swirling round opposing boulders,
+and careering indignant of restraint between long walls of beetling
+rock. Here when the sun had gone down we would embark with a crew of
+lithe brown men in a boat hewn from a single tree, seamless and stoutly
+fashioned to be the unharmed plaything of such rocks and boisterous
+waters as these. In these rapids the river waked to consciousness of
+mighty life, tossing our little craft through a riot of dancing waves,
+whirling it round the base of perpendicular rocks set like adamant in
+the hissing waters, sweeping it helpless as a petal down some glassy
+plane stilled, as it were, into a concentrated wrath of movement. The
+men sprang from side to side, from bow to stern, staving the craft with
+a miraculous deftness from a projecting boulder, forcing her into a new
+course, steadying her as she reeled in the shock and strain of the
+conflict, while their long poles bent continually like willow wands
+against her battered sides. The steersman stood silent, except when he
+shouted above all the din some resonant, eruptive word of command; the
+men responded by breathless invocations to their gods, relaxing no tense
+sinew until the pent waters rushed out into some broad pool where the
+eased stream went brimming silently, gathering new strength in the
+darkness of its central deeps.
+
+At such places the moon would perhaps be obscured by passing clouds, and
+we would land upon an eyot until she shone once more in a clear heaven.
+Stretched at length upon the fine white sand waiting for her return, we
+could hear the boom of waters in the distance calling us on to a renewal
+of the conflict. These periods of great stillness, interposed between
+tumults past and impending, had their own refinement of pleasure as far
+above the joys of fenced and covenanted ease as the bivouac of the hard
+campaign surpasses slumber in the fine linen of a captured city: they
+brought the wandering mind into communion with elemental forces, and
+seemed to hold it expectant of supernatural events. In that interlunar
+twilight there reigned a solemn sense of wonder evoked here eternally,
+one felt, from the ancient time, with the rustling of stirred foliage
+and the voice of those far waters for its music.
+
+The lulled reason yielded place to reverie, and the whole rapt being
+abandoned itself like an Orphic worshipper to the guidance of an unseen
+mysteriarch. This acquiescence in the swift succession of calm to fury
+and stress, resembled the quiet which may be conceived to follow sudden
+death; the heightened sense of vicissitude in things summoned up and
+sustained a solemn mood. All the while that we lay charmed and half
+oppressed in this atmosphere as of an under-world, the clouds were
+drawing forward on their course; and as their last fringe trailed slowly
+by and the moon was revealed once more, the spell was broken in an
+instant by human voices calling us to re-embark. Again we glided to the
+verge of tumultuous falls, again we were flung through foaming narrows
+and labyrinthine passages of torn rocks, until, the last promontory
+turned with arrowy swiftness, we shot through a postern of the granite
+barrier and bounded far into still water fringed with trees of
+profoundest shadow. We put in to shore, for this stage of our journey
+was over; the dawn was near; the carts stood waiting on the road. But
+the influence of the wonderful night, clinging about us, would keep us
+long silent, as if awed by the passing of ancient Vedic gods.
+
+I will not describe the later stages of these journeys: the coasting
+voyages in restful ships that seemed built to sail Mæander; the
+touchings at old wharfless ports; the visits to lone temples where
+Herodotus would have loved to linger; the rambles on the slopes of
+Adam's Peak; the meditations amid the ruins of Anaradhapura and
+Pollanarrua, ancient homes of kings, now stripped of every glory but
+that of these sonorous names--such are the records of every traveller,
+and are chronicled to satiety by a hundred hasty pens. A month of
+wandering within the fringe of civilization would be closed by a last
+week of patriarchal travel, bringing us back to our remote valley just
+as the clouds of the coming monsoon were ranging in denser ranks along
+the evening sky like the tents of a beleaguering army. Hardly had we
+time to settle down for the wet season, see to the stacking of
+fire-logs, and be sure that every tile on the roof was firm in its
+appointed place, when the embattled host seemed to break up from its
+last camp, and advance upon us along the whole line that the eye
+perceived.
+
+One year I was witness of the first onset, which came in the late
+afternoon--an immediate shock of massed clouds without throwing forward
+of skirmishers or any prelude of the vanguard. Our home looked down upon
+a gentle incline of open grassy land to a broad belt of jungle in the
+middle distance; here the undergrowth and small trees had been newly
+cleared away, opening out a dim far view across an uncumbered
+leaf-strewn floor into the backward gloom of the forest. I sat with my
+eyes fixed upon the trees, drawing the rain on with the whole strength
+of desire to the parched country lying there faint with the exhaustion
+of three months of drought. While I watched, the deep line of cloud, at
+first distinct from the forest-top along which it came rolling,
+insensibly merged with the foliage, until every contour was lost in a
+common gloom, only the great bare stems below standing pale against the
+gathering darkness. There was an intense stillness everywhere like the
+silence of expectation which falls upon an awestruck crowd; the very
+insects had ceased their usual song. And now the ear caught a distant
+sound, vague and deep, coming up out of the mid darkness, and growing to
+a mighty volume as a sudden wind swept out from the sounding foliage
+into the open land and searched every cranny of the house as it passed.
+Then, as if drawn by the wind, there came into view among the nearest
+tree-stems a moving grey line advancing with a long roar until it hid
+the whole forest from sight: it was the wave of battle about to break
+upon us. It came on like a wall, enormous, irresistible; one instant,
+and it had devoured the intervening space; another, and we were lost in
+the deluge, and the great rain drops were spilled upon the roof with the
+noise of continuous thunder. As the deep sound reverberated through the
+roof above me, I went in exulting to a hearth piled with blazing logs,
+glad in the prospect of renewing for many weeks old and quiet habitudes
+of indoor life, rich with solace of books and tranquil meditation.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I have dwelt upon the outward aspects of my life in exile, because the
+sojourn of these years amid the hills and forests taught a natural
+leechcraft which was to stand me in good stead in coming years, and may
+stand in equal stead other souls desolate as mine. Like the Nile
+brimming over the fields, a flood of joy from nature overlaid my parched
+being, enriching it with a fertile loam, and shielding it from the
+irritations of the world. I lay fallow beneath the still, sunlit waters,
+unharrowed by teasing points of doubt, and porous to the influence of an
+all-encompassing peace. Exile had opened to me a new heaven and a new
+earth, whose freshness and calm charmed thought away from all vain
+questionings; the fascination of outward things had for a while cooled
+the useless ardour of introspection. But it was inevitable that the
+bland ease of such a contemplative life should bring no enduring
+satisfaction to the mind; it was not an end in itself, but a mere means
+to serenity, a breathing-space useful to the recovery of a long-lost
+fortitude. The time was now come when the hunted deer, refreshed in the
+quiet of his inaccessible glen, was to awake to new thought of the herd,
+and of the duties of a common life; when the peace of successful flight
+was to appear in its true light as a momentary release, and no longer as
+the ultimate goal imagined in the anguish of pursuit.
+
+It was during this last monsoon that doubts began to stir within,
+interrupting my studies of the systems of Hindu philosophy and my
+porings over sacred books. The vague insistence of these misgivings made
+me surely aware that even in this eastern paradise all was not well;
+but at first I refused to listen, and plunged deep into the maze of the
+Vedanta to escape the importunate voice. Yet anxiety came up around me
+like a heavy atmosphere; an indescribable sense of disillusion, clinging
+as a damp mist, brought its mildew to the soul, until my new heaven was
+overcast and my new earth dispeopled of all pleasures. Then one day the
+fever struck me down, and of a sudden my mind became an arena in which
+memories of earlier life chased one another unceasingly in the round of
+a delirious dance. Trivial events impressed themselves on consciousness
+with strange precision; objects long forgotten rose before me outlined
+in fire--one, a pane of stained glass in Fairford Church, with a lost
+soul peering in anguish through the red bars of hell. Each and every
+apparition was of the old life; all were emissaries from the forsaken
+West summoning me back to my renounced allegiance. When the fever left
+me, returning reason slowly brought order amid the welter of confused
+ideas, as the ants sorted the grain for distracted Psyche, and for the
+first time I considered in the detachment of reminiscence the nature of
+my action in leaving England. I sifted the evidence at length as I lay
+under the verandah slowly recovering strength; and when at last judgment
+was delivered, it took the necessary form of condemnation.
+
+I saw now that unless a man is prepared to discard every western usage,
+to slough off his inherited cast of thought, to renounce his faith,
+wholly and finally to abandon his country and his father's house, his
+flight is but the blind expedient of cowardice or pride. Here and there
+may be born one who can so cut himself off from the parent stem as to
+endure a fruitful grafting upon an oriental stock, but I knew that I at
+least was none such. I was no more prepared for so uncompromising a
+renunciation than any other weakling who seeks prestige by parade of
+exotic wisdom, and deems himself a seer if he can but name the Triad, or
+tell the avatars of Vishnu, I had not the credulity which may justify
+the honest renegade, and the western blood still ran too warmly in my
+veins. I felt that were I to stay in the East for fifty years, I should
+never reach the supreme heights of metaphysical abstraction whence men
+really appear as specks and life as a play; therefore to remain was to
+avow myself a runaway and to live henceforth despicable in my own eyes.
+For over the unfathomable deep of oriental custom the torrent of our
+civilization flows unblending, as in the Druid's legend the twin streams
+of Dee flow clear through Bala lake, and never mingle with its waters.
+Not for our use is that intricate mind which in logic needs more than
+two premises to a conclusion, and in art is intolerant of all void
+space, entangling its figures in labyrinths of ornament which Maya
+herself might have devised to distract the sight from truth.
+
+The Hindu has the true dignity of contemplation, and superbly removes
+himself from the sordid greeds of life. But in imagining and reviling an
+abstraction called Matter, he abides in the errors of the first Greek
+sages, and mines so far beneath the trodden earth that when he looks up
+into middle day he sees only the stars above him. Could I have shared
+the eremite's belief that his prayers help not merely his own solitary
+soul but all souls travailing through all the world, I might yet have
+remained where I was, an alien living indifferent to the common rule,
+like a monk of some shunned exotic order. But with convictions like
+mine, to do so would have brought the drear sense of derogation. All the
+miseries of the past were as nothing to that; there was but one manly
+course--to return and gird my loins for a new struggle with western
+life. Within a month from the time when this course was seen to be a
+duty, I was standing on the deck of a homeward-bound steamer, watching
+the harbour lights recede into the distance.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Back once more in England, I threw aside the clinging robe of
+meditation, and falling upon work ravenously, indulged what genius of
+energy was still alive within me. I made haste to adore all that I had
+so lately burned, making life objective, revering personal ideals, and
+in the ordinance of material things finding the truest satisfaction of
+all endeavour. I saw in civilization the world's sole hope; its brisk
+life and abounding force took sudden hold of a fancy enervated by
+dreams. Again I found a new heaven and a new earth, though earth was now
+no more than man's dinted anvil, and heaven his reservoir of useful
+light. I lived for action and movement; I mingled eagerly with my
+fellows, and cursed the folly which had driven me to waste three years
+in an intellectual swoon. Now the day was not long enough for work,
+Lebanon was not sufficient to burn. I saw the western man with race-dust
+on his cheeks, or throned in the power-houses of the world, moving upon
+iron platforms and straight ladders in the mid throb and tumult of
+encompassing engines. One false step, and he must fall a crushed and
+mutilated thing. Yet unconcerned as one strolling at large, he
+controlled the great wheels and plunging pistons, and brought them to a
+standstill with a touch of his finger. The confidence and strenuous ease
+of such life compelled me to marvel and admire, and I who had so lately
+lain at the feet of eastern sages, set up this mechanician as my god.
+If I looked back at all to the land of dreams, the placid figure beneath
+the Tree of Enlightenment took on the aspect of a fool's idol, ignobly
+self-manacled, pitiful and irksome in remembrance.
+
+But if once more I dreamed of finality in change I deceived myself,
+forgetting that God Himself cannot unmake the past or undo what is done.
+A year had hardly gone by in this new apprenticeship to life, when at
+moments of weariness or overstrain sharp doubts shot through me and were
+gone again, like twinges of sudden pain recalling old disease to one who
+has lulled himself with dreams of cure. The feeling of fellowship with
+men grew weaker, and as it waned I began to shrink once more from my
+kind. I still believed myself happy, but happiness seemed to need
+constant affirmation, as though it could make no way in my favour
+without display of token or credential to confirm its truth. There were
+pauses in the clatter and jangle of life; the revolutions of the great
+wheels sometimes slowed into silence; and as these interludes grew more
+frequent, I caught myself repeating that I really was content. The faint
+assurance given, I flung myself with devouring industry upon my allotted
+task, trying to stifle the forebodings which prophesied against my
+peace.
+
+In one such pause my old self appeared before me again, like the face of
+an ancient enemy looking in from the darkness; stealthy footfalls which
+of late I had so often seemed to hear were now referred to their true
+cause as we saw each other eye to eye. The old Adam had awakened and was
+come for his inheritance; and the vision of him there across the pane
+gazing in upon his own, seemed to arraign me for disowning a brother and
+denying his indefeasible right. I recognized that with this familiar
+form cold reason had returned to oust the hopes and emotions which had
+usurped her office. My rush for freedom had ended, as such sallies often
+do, in exhaustion, capture and despair; upon the thrill and thunder of
+the charge followed the silence of the dungeon and the anguish of
+stiffening wounds. The truth, so simply written that a child might have
+spelled it, lay clear before me: I had left reformation till too late. I
+was too old to change.
+
+Even a few years before, I might have dashed out, like Marmion, from the
+prison-fortress; but now the opportunity was past and the portcullis was
+down. My character with all its faults was formed within me; and the
+very years which I had passed in the wilderness, instead of averting the
+danger, had set the final seal upon my fate, for when a man has reached
+a certain point in life he is intractable to the reforming hand. But
+though at last I knew myself beaten, and helpless in the hands of an
+implacable power, I fluttered like a wounded bird and sought wildly for
+a loophole of escape. I could no longer hope to stand alone against
+destiny; that conceit was gone: could I find a comrade to help me
+through the press and lift me when I fell? But here the invincible pride
+of shyness barred the way, forbidding alike any confession of weakness
+or any appeal to man's compassion. I could not bring myself to say: I am
+unable to rule my life, do you undertake it for me. Was marriage a
+conceivable path of redemption? I had never envisaged it before, but
+now, in my desperation, I dreamed it for a moment a possible issue. I
+even fixed upon the person who should thus save me from myself, and
+beguiled many lonely hours by picturing her charms and enumerating her
+noble qualities.
+
+She lived in a country house where I had been several times a guest, and
+she had one of those faces which, in Gray's beautiful expression, speak
+the language of all nations. Her features had that sunny charm which
+thaws mistrust; she was dowered with all graces and sweet qualities; and
+you could no more have doubted the immanent nobility of her nature than
+you could have dreamed a stain in the texture of a white petal. And with
+all her gentleness there was present I know not what sign and promise of
+strength, waking in those who saw her an intuitive trust in loyalty of
+uttermost proof. She would have flamed indignant against evil, but only
+evil could have moved her from that equal poise of soul which made her
+entrance into a room the prelude to higher thoughts and finer feelings.
+She was naturally kind without consciousness of a mission, neither
+seeking to enslave nor enfranchise, but by a silent outflowing of
+goodness ennobling whatever company she was in. Nor was her tongue the
+prattling servant of her beauty, but a guide of cheerful converse; for
+just as she charmed without device or scheme of fascination, so she
+possessed the art of speaking well without seeming to have ever studied
+it. In the chase after just and felicitous ideas, she could lead or
+follow over the most varied fields with the intuition of the huntress
+born. With all these excellences, her wit, her sincerity, her ardour for
+all things bright and true, she had no conceit of herself but kept her
+father's house in gladness and loved the country-side.
+
+To her, in these days of imminent dismay, my thoughts flew out as to a
+fair protecting saint; until the inspiration of her visionary presence
+wrought in my fancy with such a dramaturgic power, that I seemed to walk
+daily with her, and to know all those delicate and sweet propinquities
+by which liking passes into affection and affection is glorified into
+love. So far did these happy day-dreams carry me, that they brought me
+to the extreme of imaginary bliss, and poured out for me the wine of
+untempered joy which thrills the hearts of lovers on the verge of their
+betrothal. The dreams that followed that magic draught denied me no
+convincing touch of circumstance, and projected upon a credible and
+familiar scene the bright possibilities to which fate denied a real
+existence. The scene was always the same, and the words and movements
+which entranced me followed each other with almost religious exactitude
+of detail which the adult demands of his day-dreams and the child of the
+fairy-tale he loves.
+
+It was always a June afternoon when we went out together, into the
+meadows near her home; she moving with fluent grace as befitted a
+daughter of the woods, her eyes indrawing joy from all nature, her hair
+reflecting rich gold of the sunlight, her whole face lit with the
+pleasure of a bright hour; I a mere satellite attendant upon its
+central star. We strolled through the four home-meadows, crossed a
+high-banked lane and a dingle with a brook running down it, and then
+from an open common flooded with sunlight passed into a wood of tallest
+beeches. In that cool, shadowy place the sun, searching a way through
+crannies in the upper verdure, chequered with patches of silver light
+the even mast-strewn floor. The multitude of smooth grey stems rose
+aligned like cathedral columns; and the grateful dimness of the wood,
+succeeding the glare of day, wakened a sense of purposed protection and
+quietude pervading all things, which soothed the mind with the illusion
+that this was a sacred spot appointed for an offering of souls. Near one
+of those isles of sunlight we lingered; and as she looked up to the
+source of light, the movement brought her face near the slanting shaft
+of rays, until there was set round it an aureole of dancing beams. It
+seemed to me at this part of my dream that there came to both of us some
+gracious influence, for as her eyes met mine they dropped again, and
+were fixed for a moment upon the wild flowers she carried. Then my heart
+began to beat and my whole being to grow greater: impassioned words, to
+that hour unconceived, came rushing to my lips; the fire and glory of a
+new manhood were kindling in me to the transformation of my
+nature--when, in the very moment of utterance, a sheer barrier of doom
+descended between me and my joy; the fire was quenched, and my soul was
+poured out within me.
+
+To this fatal point my fancy always brought me and no further, that
+coming thus to the threshold of the house of joy and hearing the bars
+shoot into their sockets I might thoroughly know my ineffectual self and
+leave untouched the forbidden latch. So far I came in my dream times
+without number; and always on the verge of joy there came that doom, and
+the shooting of those adamantine bolts.
+
+Yet all the while I wove it, I knew that this texture of dreams must
+soon be drawn aside, and like the curtain in the tragedy reveal at last
+the horror concealed within. Such brooding was but the deception of a
+reluctant spirit dallying and delaying with any trifle by the way to put
+off the arrival at the hill of evil prospect. At last I learned the
+lesson of this abrupt ending to the dream at the point of full
+disillusion; it forced itself upon me with the power of an oracular
+utterance warning me to cease my palterings with fate. My reason now
+rebuked me like a stern judge, dissecting all false pleas and laying
+bare their weakness. What right had I, now knowing myself incurable,
+even to dream of easing my own pain by darkening and despoiling a second
+life? The love of solitude was now more to me than even the love of a
+wife; it would surely come between us like a strange woman, and fill a
+pure heart with bitterness. No smiling hopes of a possible redemption
+could annul the immutable decree, and if I disobeyed the warning, guilt
+as well as misery would be mine; for he is pitiful indeed who only weds
+that his wife may suck the poison from his wounds. If I married I should
+stand for ever condemned of an unutterable meanness. So I dispelled my
+dreams and looked reality in the face.
+
+It was a dismal prospect that lay before me. Until then the future had
+held its possible secrets, its imaginable revelations of change, which,
+like the luminous suggestions in dark clouds, allured with a promise of
+a brief and penetrable gloom. In my darkest hours I had lulled fear by
+the thought of a haply interposing Providence, and drifted on from day
+to aimless day nursing the hope of some miraculous release upon the very
+steps of the scaffold. But now I was twice fallen; and as a man
+abandoned by the last illusion of deliverance calls ruin to him, and in
+the new leisure of despair calmly scans the features at which but now he
+dared not glance, so I saw as in a hard grey light the true outlines of
+my destiny. The wreathing mist, the profound soft shadows, the clouds
+with their promise of mutability, were now all gone, leaving the bare
+framework of a world arid and severe as a lunar landscape.
+
+I seemed to be sitting in the dust, as in inmost Asia a sick man may
+crouch abandoned, while the caravan in which all his earthly hopes are
+centred goes inexorably upon its way. The blue sky flushes to deep
+purple before him; night falls; all colour is swallowed up in darkness,
+until the jingling camel-bells receding up the pass cross the dividing
+ridge, and for him the last silence is begun. Such then was the end of
+youthful ambition: for food a mouthful of ashes instead of the very
+marrow of joy; for home not the free ocean, but a stagnant pool ringed
+with weeping willows, a log's fit floating-place. Here to float, marking
+the weed creep onward until all from bank to bank was overfilmed, and
+there remained no clear water of space for reflection of a single star:
+to float, and feel the sodden fibres of life loosening in slow
+decay--this was to be the last state of the seedling which had sprung up
+on the mountain slopes with promise of mighty stem and overarching
+branches full of sap like the cedars of the Lord.
+
+My life henceforth was to be ringed round and overhung with so heavy an
+air that joy and fancy should never fly in it, but fall dead as the
+birds above Avernus according to the ancient story. I seemed to see
+nothing upon the path of the future but the stern form of Renunciation
+drawing between me and the living world the impassable circle of death
+in life, the _ultima linea rerum_. It was the last decree, the
+irrevocable sentence, the absolute end: and I had not yet reached half
+the Psalmist's span; I had not yet forgotten the lost summer mornings
+when the breeze scented with lilac came blowing through the casement,
+bearing with it the sound of glad voices welcoming the day.
+
+Philosophers are prone to gird at the animal in man, accusing it of
+dragging the soul down to the mire in which it wallows. They forget that
+by its brutal insistence upon physical needs it often preserves from
+madness, and timely arrests him who goes like a sleep-walker upon the
+verge of the abyss. Weariness and hunger are like brakes upon the car;
+they stop the dire momentum of grief, and insure that if misery will
+again drive us furiously, she must lash winded steeds anew. But what
+force should stay a disembodied sorrow, which unbreathed by period or
+alternation of despair, should be rapt onward in the whirlwind and the
+hurricane, gathering eternally a fresh impetus of woe? Let us rail at
+the body for its weakness if we will, but prize it also for its
+restraint of the distracted mind. In the worst hour of my dejection it
+was the body which called the lost reason home. I became hungry and ate,
+hardly knowing what I did; I slept exhaustion away; and after many hours
+awoke with clearer eyes, grateful to the weak flesh, and ready in its
+company to face life once more, a defeated but not a desperate man. I
+was glad to be thus reminded that the body could play this helpful part,
+and my gratitude for its timely rescue taught me in after days to endure
+its tyranny with a better grace. In the interlude between despair and
+new effort, I once more turned a dispassionate gaze upon myself, as upon
+some abandoned slave of a drug; and maintaining an attitude of
+half-amused detachment, sought by a diagnosis of my case to establish
+the real causes of my failure to lead a normal life.
+
+At the outset I would make it clear that for me the only shyness that
+counts, is that which is so deeply ingrained, as to have outlasted
+youth. It may, indeed, be physically related to that transient
+bashfulness which haunts so many of us in our younger days only to
+vanish at maturity, swift as the belated ghost at cockcrow. But unlike
+this common accident of growth, it is no surface-defect, but an inward
+stain which dyes the very fibres of the being. It may, indeed, be
+somewhat bleached and diminished by a timely and skilful treatment, but
+is become too much a part of life to be ever wholly washed away. And the
+unhappy step-children of nature whose inheritance it is, seldom find a
+deliverer good at need; for as the world draws no distinction between
+their grave affliction and that other remediable misery of youth, it
+will sanction no other treatment than banter or mockery, which does but
+infuse yet more deeply the mournful dye. When this fails, it leaves its
+victims to the desolation which according to its judgment they have
+wilfully chosen; for the most part ignoring their existence, but often
+chastising them with scorpion-stings of disdain. Yet the subjects of
+this scorn, sufferers as I believe from a hereditary tendency matured by
+neglect into disease, deserve a more merciful usage than this, and their
+plea for extenuating circumstances should not be too impatiently
+rejected. For in them what is to most men a transient ailment has thrown
+down permanent roots to draw a nourishment from pain: and he who is
+fortunate enough to be whole should think twice before he makes sport of
+those in this distress.
+
+To me this malady seems to arise from an antinomy between the physical
+and intellectual elements of the personality, from an unhappy marriage
+of mind and body, suffering the lower of the two partners to abase the
+life of the higher by the long-drawn misery of a hateful but
+indissoluble union. When the physical and mental natures in a man are
+happily attuned, there is a fair concord in his life and the outward
+expression of his being is an unimpeded process, to which, as to the
+functions of a healthy organism, no heedful thought is given. If both
+natures are of the finest temper, they find utterance in a noble
+amiability and ease of manner; if both are coarse in the grain, they
+blend in a naïve freedom always sure of itself, the freedom of Sancho
+spreading himself in the duchess's boudoir. Between these two extremes
+there intervene a hundred compromises by which minds and bodies less
+equally yoked contrive to muffle the discordant notes of an inharmonious
+wedlock.
+
+In most cases use gives to this politic agreement the peace and
+permanence of settled habit; the body proves itself so far amenable that
+it is accepted as a needful if uninspiring companion, and its plain
+usefulness ends by dulling the edged criticisms of the mind. But
+wherever there is a permanent incompatibility too profound for
+compromise, an elemental difference keeping the personality continually
+distraught, then shyness, in the sense in which I understand it, assumes
+its inalienable dominion. The flame of rebellion may smoulder unobserved
+while the sufferer is in his own home, but among strangers it will
+blaze fiercely, as the mind protests against the misinterpretations of
+its unworthy partner. This burning shame is not the proof of a foolish
+conceit, as unsympathetic criticism proclaims it, but the visible misery
+of a keen spirit thwarted by physical defect. The man who manifests it
+is angered with himself because through a physical hindrance he has
+failed to take the place which would otherwise be his. He is proud, it
+may be, but not fatuous; for shyness as a rule implies a comparative
+quickness and alertness of intellect: its exceeding sensibility is
+exclusive of dulness; and it is frequently due to the presence in a
+reluctant body of a mind endowed with active powers.
+
+Inasmuch as diffidence appears where the subtler formalities of life are
+compulsory, it is clear that it essentially belongs to the class called
+gentle, for this class alone enforces that exacting code of etiquette to
+which our discomfiture is so largely due. Shyness has seldom place in
+the patriarchal life where men live, "sound, without care, every man
+under his own vine or his own fig-tree," nor among those who, perforce
+pursuing a too laborious existence, have no leisure for superficial
+refinements. Though here and there you may find a Joseph Poorgrass, it
+is rare among the simple; it is not a popular weakness, and therefore
+wins no popular sympathy. Such is its first social limitation: it is
+almost restricted to the classes which are outwardly refined.
+
+But it has another limitation of equal importance which may be described
+as climatic; for this malady is not found in equal degrees all over the
+habitable globe. There are many lands where it hardly exists at all even
+among the class which is alone liable to it; and in its serious form it
+is found only over a small part of the earth. There are many causes
+which conduce to this partial distribution. In one country manners are
+not minutely schooled, women being held of secondary account, and men
+content without subtlety; in another, life is in itself too primitive to
+devise the artifices of refinement; in a third, the fundamental disunion
+between the mind and the physical organism is prevented by the kindly
+hand of nature. For these reasons all the savage world, all the East,
+and the whole of southern Europe have little knowledge of the diffident,
+and what zoologists would call the area of distribution of the species
+is confined within narrow geographical limits.
+
+It is in fact chiefly in the north and west of our own continent that
+the haunts of the diffident are to be found, for there alone are all the
+conditions necessary to their maintenance fulfilled--a society
+sufficiently leisured and wealthy to have elaborated conventional rules
+of intercourse, the assemblage of both sexes upon an equal footing, and
+a climate which exaggerates the antagonism between the quick mind and
+the unresponsive body. Here the cold humid airs have produced a race
+with great limbs and great appetites, but compensated these gifts by a
+certain unreadiness in the delicate encounter of wits and graces. To
+these impassive natures all displays of the personality are distasteful,
+and the lighter social arts, seeming both insignificant and histrionic,
+are learned with difficulty and practised with repugnance. An
+awkwardness of address, in the uneducated almost bovine, becomes in the
+cultivated a painful reserve and self-consciousness, reflecting in open
+physical distress the uneasiness of the man's whole being.
+
+And among the northern nations which are thus afflicted England has
+achieved an undesirable supremacy, having herself smoothed the path of
+her eminence by a school system which withdraws her youth from female
+influences during the years when the tendency to reserve may be combated
+with a certain hope of success. It would ill become one who has never
+recovered from the effects of such deprivation to assume on the ground
+of his own narrow experience any wide dissemination of similar defects
+among his countrymen; his testimony would be received with suspicion,
+and he would be condemned as one who to justify himself would drag
+others down to his own poor level. Let me therefore place myself on
+surer ground by calling as a witness an impartial observer from another
+country, one exceptionally trained in the analysis of national
+temperament and conduct.
+
+When M. Taine visited England towards the close of the nineteenth
+century one of the first things to attract his notice was the
+bashfulness which he encountered in unexpected places. He was surprised
+to meet travelled and cultured men who were habitually embarrassed in
+society, and so reserved that you might live with them six months before
+you discovered half their excellent qualities. To unveil their true
+nature there was needed the steady breeze of a serious interest or the
+hurricane of perilous times; the faint airs of courtliness could not
+stir the heavy folds that hung before their hearts. These strong men
+could not join in delicate raillery, but shrank back afraid; as if a
+tortoise, startled by a shower of blossoms, should withdraw into that
+thick carapace which can bear the impact of a rock. There was one who
+stammered pitifully in a drawing-room, but the next day sought the
+suffrages of electors with an unembarrassed and fluent eloquence, so
+proving that his failure came not of folly or cowardice, but from lack
+of training in a certain school of fence. He needed the open air for the
+play of his broadsword; and to his hand, apt to another hilt, the foil
+appeared a woman's weapon. Speaking of high aims and national ideals, he
+moved in a large place oblivious of himself; but in the social arena he
+tripped with timid steps, like a man essaying an unfamiliar dance. On
+the platform he had the enthusiasm and confidence of an orator; on the
+carpet he could not string three sentences in any courtly language.
+
+In the North the art of mercurial dialogue, which in the South is a
+natural gift, is only learned under favourable conditions, and is often
+condemned by those who have it not, as a popinjay's accomplishment.
+Immediate cordiality to strangers is frowned upon as tending to divorce
+courtesy from truth. It is otherwise with the southern peoples. While
+the Englishman conceals his benevolence by a frigid aloofness of manner,
+or blurts out friendliness like an indiscretion, the Italian is courtly
+without a second thought, and the Frenchman seems the comrade of a
+chance acquaintance from the moment when he has taken his hand. They are
+amiable without effort in the security of a harmonious nature, and if
+they encounter diffidence at all, observe it like an anthropologist
+confronted with a survival of primitive times in the culture of a
+civilized age.
+
+Taine did not err when he found the home of shyness among the Teutonic
+peoples; he saw that it flourishes in climatic conditions acting hardly
+upon a vigorous race, and only allowing it to cultivate ease of manner
+by effort and outlay, just as they only allow it to raise under glass
+the grapes and oranges which more favoured peoples can grow in the open
+air. He saw too that this pain of diffidence becomes more subtle as the
+progress of culture makes us more sensitive to vague impressions from
+our environment, and tunes the nerves to a higher pitch. A shy nature
+upon this plane of susceptibility suffers anguish from an uncontrollable
+body; and even in peaceful moments the memory of the discomfitures so
+inflicted may distort a man's whole view of the world around him. He is
+impatient of the wit which demands a versatility in response beyond his
+powers, and persuades himself into contempt of those ephemeral arts to
+which his nature cannot be constrained. Irritated at the injustice which
+places so high in the general scale of values accomplishments which he
+cannot practise, shrinking from the suave devices of gesture and
+expression which in his own case might quickly pass into antic or
+grimace, he withdraws more and more from the places where such arts win
+esteem to live in a private world of inner sentiment. As he leaves this
+sure retreat but rarely himself, so he forbids ingress to others; and
+becoming yearly a greater recluse, he confines himself more and more
+within the walls of his forbidden city. The mind which may have been
+fitted to expand in the free play of intellectual debate or to explore
+the high peaks of idea, loses its power of flight in this cave where it
+dwells with a company of sad thoughts, until at last the sacrifice is
+complete and the perfect eremite is formed.
+
+But the virile Teutonic spirit does not suffer things to reach this
+ultimate pass without stubborn resistance, and this is one reason why
+shyness is often so conspicuous, seeming deliberately to court an
+avoidable confusion. Over and over again it forces the recalcitrant body
+back into the arena, preferring repeated humiliation to a pusillanimous
+surrender. People often wonder at the recklessness with which the shy
+expose themselves to disaster, forgetting that in this insistence of a
+soul under discomfiture, there is evidence of a moral strength which is
+its own reward. What discipline is harder than that which conscientious
+diffidence imposes upon itself? To stand forth and endure, though every
+instinct implores retreat, is a true assertion of the higher self for
+the satisfaction of imperious duty. Such deliberate return towards
+suffering is no cowardice, but a triumph over weak flesh; and the
+awkward strife of diffidence may often prove a greater feat of arms than
+the supple fence of self-possession.
+
+Like the physical obstacles, the mists, the snows and bleak winds, which
+have hardened the fibre of northern men, diffidence as an obstacle to
+ease has its place among the causes of strong character; and those who
+appear at a first glance weak and ineffectual as Hamlet, will often in
+the light of knowledge be found guided by the most inflexible moral
+determination. They see, as in a mirage, peace supreme and adorable, but
+may not tread the hermit's path that leads to her dwelling. Only a
+religious vow might justify the abandonment of the human struggle, and
+even that appears desertion. The stern genius of the North grudges
+immurement, even to great piety, remembering that Christ himself
+remained but forty days in the desert and then returned to deliver the
+world. If he had remained there all his life, and never met the
+Pharisees and high-priests, our forefathers would have rejected his law.
+For this reason there can be no more rest for the shy than for starving
+Tantalus; for this reason my flight into the East had been foredoomed to
+failure.
+
+If shyness is thus affected by climate and geography, its birth and
+growth are also conditioned by historical causes. Just as it is the
+peculiar failing of northern and western peoples, so it is the creation
+of comparatively modern times; it had no place among the classified
+weaknesses of men until these peoples began in their turn to make
+history.
+
+In Greece, where limb and thought were consentient in one grace of
+motion, the body was too perfect an expression of the mind to admit any
+consciousness of discord; the greater simplicity of a life passed
+largely in the open air, left no place for awkwardness in the franker
+converse of man with man. Moreover the seclusion of women rendered
+unnecessary that complicated code of manners which the freer intercourse
+of the sexes has built up in later times as a barrier against brutality
+or the unseemly selfishness of passion. In Greece the words of the witty
+and the wise could be heard in the market-place; good conversation was
+not for the few alone; and the common man might of unquestioned right
+approach the circle of Socrates or Plato. The sense of community was
+everywhere, overthrowing reserve, and propitious to the universal growth
+of fellowship.
+
+In the Roman world things were changed; there were more closed doors and
+courts impenetrable of access. Insignia of office, gradations of wealth
+and rank, sundered those of high estate from classes which now
+acknowledged their own inferiority; privacies, exclusions, distinctions
+innumerable, altered the face of public life as the easy _mos majorum_
+was confined by the ordinances of encroaching fashion. It was now that
+women began to be cast for leading parts upon the great stage of life.
+Under the Empire, by the rapid removal of her disabilities the Roman
+matron achieved a position of independence which made her, according to
+her nature, a potent force of good or evil. It was now that the
+intricate threads of social prescription were woven into that ceremonial
+mantle which was afterwards to sit so uneasily on the shoulders of
+barbarian men.
+
+But the time for shyness was not yet come, for Italy is a sunny land
+where clear air makes clear minds, blandly or keenly observant of the
+world, and never impelled by onset of outer mists and darkness to tend a
+flickering light within themselves. There was melancholy, high and
+stately, such as Lucretius knew, when he went lonely among the
+homesteads or along the shore; but it was too exalted to be one with
+diffidence, for he who will hold the sum of things in his thoughts walks
+on clouds above the heads of men, free of all misgiving. Perhaps beyond
+the Alps, in some Rhætian upland where Roman dignity was interfused with
+old barbaric roughness, the first signs of our malady were perceived and
+the first ancestor of all the shy was born. But even yet the time was
+not ripe, nor the place prepared. Christianity had to come, turning
+men's eyes inwards and proclaiming the error of the objective pagan way.
+A new feeling, the sense of personal unworthiness before God, spreading
+through the Roman world, now stirred mankind to still communing with
+themselves, and sanctioned the stealing away from the noisy festivals of
+life. By enjoining a search into the depths of the heart, it encouraged
+the growth of a self-consciousness hitherto unknown. It was not always a
+panic of contrition, sweeping the joyous out of the sunlight into a
+monastic shade, which brought the troubled into a new way of peace, but
+sometimes a quiet joy in renunciation, congruous with a timid mood,
+leading by gradual allurement to cloisters of shadowy lanes and cells
+which were forest bowers. The new faith gave open sanction to evasion of
+the banquet, and thus fortified and increased those who loved not the
+ceremonial day. The spirit of solitude, no more a mænad, but a nun,
+sheltered earth's children in the folds of her robe, and no man said her
+nay.
+
+Moreover, Christianity quickened the force of that feminine influence
+which Rome had first set flowing through the civilized world, but
+diverted the stream from irregular and torrential courses into a smooth
+channel gliding amid sacred groves. It clothed woman with ideal grace
+and virtue, and perceived in her powers which the virile mind could
+never wield. "Inesse quinetiam sanctum aliquid et providum putant, nec
+aut consilia earum aspernantur, nec responsa negligunt." So our
+ancestors held in the northern woods, and Christianity, purifying and
+expanding their belief, fulfilled it with a new perfection.
+
+But this gradual binding of all men's limbs in silken cords of
+reverence, making a rude world civil, was now to inaugurate for
+diffidence its miserable career. Through the rough deference of the
+German camp, through the Provençal code of _courtoisie_, up to the
+modern law of fine manners, the drudge and chattel of the primeval tribe
+has risen to impose her law upon the modern world. Earth is better for
+this finer power, but social intercourse is less sincere. For woman,
+having curbed the brute man by conventional restraints of outward
+demeanour, has made human intercourse smooth and seemly, but imposed
+upon mankind the wearing of unnatural masks. Before the multitude of
+locked souls with labels of smiling faces the sensitive nature feels
+itself mocked, and is soon distraught. It cannot suffer convention
+gladly for an ultimate good, but is chilled by this everlasting
+urbanity, which must, it fancies, be compact of irony and conceal a
+disingenuous soul.
+
+All this finished science of illusion is like an east wind to the
+confidences of the shy, and if they stay within its range they are
+blighted before their hearts have time to unfold. They long for a less
+biting air, for vernal hours in sheltered dells, where without sheaths
+and unguarded the hearts of flowers lie open to their neighbours and to
+heaven. There was once a simple day when religion set hearts
+interflowing, but now it can melt them only within the precincts; the
+fire which is carried from the altar is dead at the church door. The
+brotherliness of those early days is indeed often found in humble walks
+of life, but these we cannot continually tread, because our intellectual
+and artistic tastes find there no sufficient nurture. Among the cultured
+a cold convention often reigns, behind which only a more persistent
+nature than ours can pass. Unless, therefore, we find our way into some
+circle of gentle scholars or lovers of the beautiful quite simple in
+their tastes, a thing possible but not often granted by a niggard
+fortune, we are perforce thrown back upon our own company, and move
+towards the grave alone. For this we accuse none; nothing is more at
+fault than our own constitution. But to us society is a school of dames,
+who are not to be blamed if amid the crowd that clamours for their
+teaching, they find no time for the backward scholar. We are the dunces
+of the school, and are dismissed without learning the accomplishments
+set forth upon the prospectus. That is why in our northern streets so
+many seeming hats are cowls.
+
+In England the loss of congenial intercourse is perhaps more certain
+than in other lands. For through his national reserve the
+highly-cultured Englishman has a cold perfection of good breeding to
+which heartiness is vulgarity; he emanates intimidation, and in courtesy
+is rather studious than spontaneous, seldom genial but in an ancient
+friendship. If you knew him to the concealed heart, and were suffered to
+assay the fine metal beneath this polished surface, you would win a
+golden friendship; but only on a desert island would he permit the
+operation. To the shy who may encumber his path his bearing seems marked
+by an indifference which they magnify into aversion, and are thereby the
+worse confounded. In a land where such convention reigns they go through
+life like persons afflicted with a partial deafness; between them and
+the happier world there is as it were a crystalline wall which the
+pleasant low voices of confidence can never traverse.
+
+I say, then, that the real, the enduring shyness is that inveteration of
+reserve to which a few men in a few countries are miserably condemned.
+Others know it as a transient inconvenience, as the croup or measles of
+childhood; but in us it is obstinate and ineradicable as grave disease.
+If out of the long frustration of our efforts to be whole some strain of
+bitterness passes into our nature; if sometimes we burn with unjust
+resentment against the fate which, suffers such lives as ours to be
+prolonged, let it be remembered in extenuation that to those who bear a
+double burden human charity owes the larger kindliness. For though like
+you we bear our share of common troubles, O happier men and women, the
+common pleasures and compensations which are as wings upon your
+shoulders are heavy packs on ours. The cheerful contrasts are for you
+alone; for us the bright threads interwoven in the dark stuff of life
+were faded before they reached the loom.
+
+You who have the friendships and affections without which you would not
+care to live a day, think more kindly of those to whom the interludes of
+toil are often harder than the toil itself. Of your charity believe our
+fate ordained and not the choice of our own perversity; for what man
+born of woman would choose a path so sad, were there not within him some
+guiding and possessing devil which he could in nowise cast out? Never
+will in maddest hours of freedom consented to such doom; we were
+condemned at birth, our threads were spoiled upon the fingers of the
+Norns.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Such in its broader outlines seemed the infirmity which had grown with
+my growth, and now had to be reckoned with, like the bridle of Theages,
+as a permanent hindrance to a reasonable happiness. Old hopes lay
+shattered about me--well, I had to pick up the fragments and piece
+together a less ambitious ideal.
+
+I will not linger over the forces which helped my resolution, the great
+and general remedies which come to the relief of men in like evil case.
+Religion, philosophy, art, science, literature--all promised their
+anodynes against despair; slowly they stirred in me anew those springs
+of interest in life which disillusion seemed to have choked for ever. I
+rose up, and looking round upon the world saw that it was still good;
+and there came into my memory brave words which a golden book puts in
+the mouths of its indomitable knights: "I will take the adventure which
+God shall ordain me." I now perceived that if evil fortune had unhorsed
+me it had yet left me endurance to continue the combat on foot. My
+second failure was more final and disastrous than the first discomfiture
+in earlier life, but now the plague of pessimism was stayed by a
+greater recuperative power. Those long hours of the long eastern day,
+spent under the verandah with books of many ages and languages, had not
+been altogether fruitless; they had helped to mature a wider and more
+catholic taste than that of restless youth, the kind of culture that
+brings not rebellion but peace.
+
+In my eastern watch-tower I had re-read the great books from a new point
+of vantage, and let the eye roam over fields of literature which lie
+beyond the undergraduate's bounds; by a still permeation of fine
+influence, my crude philosophy was unconsciously mellowed, as the
+surface of ivory, according to Roman belief, by the bland air of Tibur.
+For by the mere being in an atmosphere of serenity our nature grows
+porous to gracious influences streaming in we know not how or when, and
+taking their abode in our very grain and structure. And so without
+consciousness of good desert, I found myself confident in a new
+discipline, and looking for the word of command from wiser leaders than
+Byron or the youthful Shelley. Queen Mab was now the saddest rhetoric,
+and Childe Harold's plaint unseemly lamentation; I had erased from my
+calendar of saints the names of apostles of affliction once held in
+honour; the Caliph Amurath with his tale of fourteen happy days out of a
+long life of royal opportunity; Swift with his birthday lection from
+Jeremiah. Rather there trooped into memory with a quiet pomp and
+induction of joy, forms of men who, though justified in rebellion by
+every human suffrage, remained loyal to the end and proved by endurance
+a more imperial humanity. Socrates unperturbed by mortal injustice;
+Dante a deep harmonious voice amid jangling destinies; William the
+Silent serene in every desperate conjecture--these seemed now the more
+perfect captains. If exile had done no more than transfer my allegiance
+to such as these, I had not borne the lash in vain.
+
+But at the first setting out upon this later stage I had still mistakes
+to make, and the ascent to tranquillity was not to be accomplished
+without stumbling. It was the old Roman creed which first drew me away
+from fretting memories; in its high restraint, as of a hushed yet mighty
+wind, it breathed a power of valiant endurance, and promised before
+nightfall the respite of a twilight hour. For stoicism has qualities
+which seem foreordained for the bracing of shy souls, as if the men who
+framed its austere laws had prescience of our frailty and consciously
+legislated to its intention. It is the philosophy of the individual
+standing by himself, as the shy must always stand, over against a world
+which he likes not but may not altogether shun. And in this proud
+estrangement it promises release from all the inquisition of morbid
+fears, and an imperturbable calm above the need of earthly friends or
+comfort or happiness; it plants the feet upon that path of nature along
+which a man may go strongly, consoled in solitude by a god-like sense of
+self-reliance. This immutable confidence is the essential power of
+stoicism, which does not, like the great oriental religions, tame
+personality by ruthless maiming, but teaches it to bear the brunt of
+adversities erect, like an athlete finely trained. Its very arrogance,
+its sufficiency, perforce commend it to those whose instinct urges to
+self-abasement: its lofty disregard of adverse circumstance is medical
+to their timidity.
+
+And so in the hour of my bereavement its voice inspired to resistance
+like a bugle sounding the advance; its echoes rang with the assurance
+that man was not made to be the worm of Eden, darkly creeping in the
+dust, but rather its noblest creature, with the light crowning his head
+and the winds tossing his hair. And then its strong simplicity, so
+masculine and unemotional, was grateful to one now finally dismated, and
+so cruelly handled as to have, it seemed, no use for a heart any more.
+Better let feeling die than be betrayed by diffidence into the denial of
+its true allegiance, or into expressions of the inner life false and wry
+as the strange laughter which the doomed suitors in Ithaca could not
+control. Though it stifled feeling, the creed of Cleanthes exalted the
+intellect, which was all that now remained to me unimpaired; surely it
+was the appointed rule for one henceforth to be severed from the
+passions and enthusiasms through which humanity errs and is happy.
+
+"The world," the wise Stoic seemed to say, "is twofold in its nature.
+Some things may be changed by man, others are by his utmost effort
+immutable. God has implanted in you a right reason by which, when it is
+well trained, you can infallibly distinguish between the two, avoiding
+thus all unworthy fretfulness and all idle kicking against the pricks.
+Therefore he has made you for happiness; for the joy of men is an
+achievement; and their misery in the coveting of the unattainable end.
+If you would fulfil his benevolent design, seek only what has been
+placed in your power, frankly resigning all that lies beyond; but be
+ever difficult in renunciation; test and sound well every issue, lest
+you leave a permitted good undone, than which nothing is a greater sin.
+To be loyal, to be contented, to acquiesce in all things save only in
+ameliorable evil, this is to live according to nature, which is God's
+administration. If you are assiduous in careful choosing, you will learn
+at last to make a right use of every event; you will be harassed no
+more by vain desire or unreasoning aversion, but will become God's
+coadjutor and be always of his mind. So, when external things have
+ceased to trouble your spirit, you will no longer be a competitor for
+vanities; but, enfranchised from all solicitude, you will have discarded
+envy and conceit and intolerance, which are the ill fruits of that vain
+rivalry. You will neither cringe before power nor covet great place, for
+alike from inordinate affection and from the fear of pain or death you
+will be free. Disenamoured of mundane things, you will live simply and
+unperturbed, in kindness and cheerfulness and in gratitude to
+Providence. Life will be to you as a feast or solemnity, and when it
+comes to a close, you will rise up saying, 'I have been well and nobly
+entertained, it is fit that I give place to another guest.'"
+
+The strength and mastery thus promised raised my dejected spirits, as
+the words of a new and sanguine physician may hearten one who had long
+lain stricken yet now dares to hope for the day of recovery. This was a
+law which did not denounce the world as illusion or enjoin a cloistral
+seclusion upon the mind, but rather proposed each and every appearance
+as a touchstone on which the quality of personality should be
+unceasingly tried. By the constant application of a high standard to
+life, it seemed to implant an incorrupt seed of manliness, and to create
+in its disciples that saner mood which holds in equal aversion a
+Heliogabalus and a Simeon Stylites. So persuaded, I could join with the
+fervour of a neophyte in the Stoic's profession: "Good and evil are in
+choice alone, and there is no cause of sorrowing save in my own errant
+and wilful desires. When these shall have been overcome, I shall possess
+my soul in tranquillity, vexing myself in nowise if, in the world's
+illusive good, all men have the advantage over me. For all outward
+things I will bear with equal mind, even chains or insults or great
+pain, ashamed of this only, if reason shall not wholly free me from the
+servitude of care. Let others boast of material goods; mine is the
+privilege of not needing these or stooping to their control. I will
+have but a temperate desire of things open to choice, as they are good
+and present, and the tempter shall find no hold for his hands by which
+to draw me astray. I will be content with any sojourn or any company,
+for there is none, howsoever perilous, which may not prove and
+strengthen the defences of my soul. For I have built an impregnable
+citadel whence, if only I am true to myself, I can repel assaults from
+the four quarters of heaven. Who shall console one lifted above the
+range of grief, whom neither privation nor insolence can annoy? for he
+has peace as an inalienable possession, and by no earthly tyranny shall
+be perturbed. Bearing serenely all natural impediments to action,
+trespassing beyond no eternal landmark, by no foolishness provoked, he
+shall become a spectator and interpreter of God's works; he shall ripen
+to the harvest in the sunshine and wait tranquilly for the sickle,
+knowing that corn is only sown that it may be reaped, and man only born
+to die."
+
+The mere repetition of these words, so instinct with the spirit of old
+Roman fortitude, roused me to a more immediate resolution than any
+other form of solace. There are times when a splendour of exaggeration
+is the best foil to truth. The Roman's pride is the best corrective to
+the earthward bias of the diffident; by its excess of an opposite defect
+it drives us soonest into the mean of a simple and manly confidence. It
+is better for us first to repeat, "Dare to look up to God and say: Make
+use of me for the future as Thou wilt, I am of the same mind, I am equal
+with Thee.... Lead me whither Thou wilt," than to dwell upon such words
+as these: "It is altogether necessary that thou have a true contempt for
+thyself if thou desire to prevail against flesh and blood"--or these:
+"If I abase myself ... and grind myself to the dust which I am, Thy
+grace will be favourable to me, and Thy light near unto my head.... By
+seeking Thee alone and purely loving Thee I have found both myself and
+Thee, and by that love have more deeply reduced myself to nothing."
+
+This supreme abnegation may leave the saint unharmed, but it is ill
+fitted for those who droop already with the malady of dejection. The
+divine wisdom which knows the secrets of all hearts and their
+necessities infinitely various, shall exact obedience according to no
+adamantine law: it loves not the jots and tittles of formalism, nor the
+pretensions of those who would cast all things in one mould. From those
+made perfect, from the saints whose links with earth are almost severed,
+whose sight begins to pierce gross matter through, it may accept
+prostration and endless contrite tears, knowing that to these, upon the
+very verge of illumination, the forms of slavery have lost their
+vileness. But to those who are still of earth and can but conceive God's
+fatherhood according to earthly similitudes, it will not ordain a prone
+obeisance. Such it will require to stand erect even in contrition, in
+that posture which is the privilege of sons. We who are unperfected
+affront God supposing him pleased with the prostration of his children.
+It is the ignorance of a feudal age that ascribes to him a Byzantine
+love of adulation; but that age is no more, and he disserves the divine
+majesty who imputes to it a liking for the _esprit d'antichambre_.
+
+I did not need to dwell upon my weakness and misery but rather upon the
+grandeur of humanity, whose kinship and collaboration God himself does
+not reject. The Stoic phase was a useful stage on the road of
+convalescence, and the majestic words of Epictetus more helpful to a
+manlier bearing than the confessions of the saintliest souls. If, as is
+not to be doubted, there are others who seek an issue from the same dark
+region where I wandered, I do not fear to point them to the Stoic way,
+which like a narrow gorge cold with perpetual shadow is yet their
+shortest path upward to the high slopes lit with sunlight. Let them
+enter it without fear and endure its shadows a while, for by other ways
+they will fetch a longer compass and come later to their release.
+
+But when some interval had passed I became aware that this cold ideal
+was not the end, and that out of the gall of austerity sweetness should
+yet come forth. Wise men have said that all great systems of ethics
+meet upon a higher plane, as the branches of forest trees rustle
+together in the breeze; for though in the dark earth their roots creep
+apart, their summits are joined in the freedom of clear air. As I now
+struck inland from the iron shores of shipwreck, my heart warmed to a
+brighter and softer landscape, and with Landor I began to wish that I
+might walk with Epicurus on the right hand and Epictetus on the left.
+With a later thinker I reflected that if the Stoic knew more of the
+faith and hope of Christianity, the Epicurean came nearer to its
+charity. For it is true that Stoicism commands admiration rather than
+love. It was indeed too harsh a saying that "the ruggedness of the Stoic
+is only a silly affectation of being a god, to wind himself up by
+pulleys to an insensibility of suffering": that is the judgment of the
+bluff partisan, so shocked by the adversary's opinions that he feels
+absolved from any effort to understand them. But even those who in
+extremity have been roused to new valour by the precepts as by a Tyrtæan
+ode, for all the gratitude which they owe, will not impute to their
+deliverers an inhuman perfection. The Stoic does in truth wear a
+semblance of academic conceit, as though related to God not as a child
+to its father, but as a junior to a senior colleague. And with all its
+sufficiency, his philosophy seems too Fabian in its counsels; it is
+always withdrawing, passing by on the other side, avoiding battle--so
+that as a preparation for the uttermost ordeal it will often prove
+inferior to the reckless pugnacity of a narrow zealot.
+
+Then, too, it acts like a frost not merely upon personal, but upon
+national ambition, and so keeps the wellspring from the root. Its
+assumption of a superhuman fortitude accords but ill with scientific
+truth, for if with one bound every man may become as God, he will
+despise that infinitely slow upward progression which is the only real
+advance. But, above all, it lives estranged from tenderness, in which
+alone at certain hours of torment the distracted mind finds God's face
+reflected. It preaches renunciation of all vain aversions and desires;
+but it repels sweet impulses that are not vain. By exalting apathy in
+regard to personal suffering, it becomes insensible to others' pain
+also. In the conviction that appeals for sympathy are avowals of
+unworthiness, it will have no part in the love of comrades, and it never
+discovered the truth that the strength and the compassion of the Divine
+are one perfection.
+
+There is a favourite mediæval legend depicted in one of the windows of
+the cathedral at Bourges, which exposes in a characteristic fashion this
+weakness of the Stoic's creed. The Evangelist St John, when at Ephesus,
+remarked in the forum the philosopher Cratinus giving a lesson of
+abnegation to certain rich young men. At the teacher's bidding the
+youths had converted all their wealth into precious stones, and these
+they were now bidden crush to dust with a heavy hammer in the presence
+of the assembled people, that so they might make public profession of
+their contempt for riches. But St John was angered at so wasteful a
+renunciation. "It is written," he said, "that whoso would be perfect
+should not destroy his possessions, but sell them, and give the proceeds
+to the poor." "If your master is the true God," replied Cratinus
+scornfully, "restore these gems again to their original form, and then
+they shall be bestowed according to your desire." St John prayed, and
+the precious stones lay there once more perfect in all their brilliance
+and splendour. The moral of the old tale is clear--that all virtue
+without charity is nothing worth; and that of virtue without charity,
+the Stoic's cold renunciation is the chief type and ensample.
+
+The insight into this higher truth did not come by inspiration, but was
+gradually imparted during long summer days, when I wandered from dawn to
+dark among the fields and woods. Hoping at first no more than to tire
+the mind with the body and so win a whole repose, I became by degrees
+receptive of a new learning from nature, which created new sympathies
+and kindled fresh ambitions. Naturally I again read Wordsworth, and now
+for the first time since childhood I knew what joys intimacy brings. I
+was one of a brotherhood, and wherever I went was sure of a friendly
+salutation. Things that grew in silence became my friends; I was with
+them at all hours, in light and shadow, in warmth and cold, watching
+their gracious and responsive existences, which reject no good gift, but
+radiantly grow towards the light while it endures. Insensibly the spirit
+of this gentle expansive life was infused within me, until the heart
+which I had deemed useless and outworn, began to open like a flower
+scathed by frost, at the full coming of spring. The plants and trees
+were human to me, the brooks spoke with articulate voice; by that
+ancient witchery of animism, old as the relationship of man and nature,
+I was put to school again: until at last, absorbed in the vicissitudes
+of small things and surrendering reason to a host of pathetic fallacies,
+I was taught the great secret that life may not be centred in itself,
+but in the going out of the heart is wisdom. And as among human friends
+there are some to whom a man is bound by deeper and tenderer links than
+to the rest, so it is with these other friends which have no language,
+but only the wild-wood power of growing about the heart. Among their
+gracious company each man will discover his own affinity, and having
+found it will look on the rest of nature with brighter eyes. Some learn
+the great lessons from mountains, lakes, and sounding cataracts; others
+from broad rivers peacefully flowing to the sea. To me there spoke no
+such romantic voices. My wanderings led me through a country of simple
+rural charm, and the friends that became dearest to me were just our
+English elms.
+
+Who but the solitary, artists alone excepted, understand the full charm
+of elms in an English landscape? To us there is an especial appeal in
+their loneliness, as they range apart along the hedgerows, embayed in
+blue air and sunlight which do but play upon the fringe of your huddling
+forest. See them on a breezy August morning across a tawny corn-field,
+printing their dark feathery contours on a blue sky and holding the
+shadows to their bosoms; or on a June evening get them between you and
+the setting sun, and mark the droop and poise of the upper foliage
+fretted black upon a ground of red fire. Here are no cones or
+hemispheres, or shapeless bulks of green, but living beings of
+articulated form, clothed in verdure as with the fine-wrought drapery
+that enhances rather than conceals the beauty of the statue.
+
+Or at a still later hour, over against the harvest moon, see them rise
+congruous with the gentle night, casting round them not palls of ominous
+gloom, but clear translucent shadows sifted through traceries of leafage
+which do but veil the light. And what variety of form and structure
+sunders them from other trees, what irregular persuasive grace. Some are
+tall and straight, springing like fountains arrested in the moment when
+they turn to fall; others bend oblique without one perpendicular line,
+every branch by some subtle instinct evading the hard angles of
+earth-measurement as unmeet for that which frames the sky; others again
+spread to all the quarters of heaven their vast umbrageous arms. No
+trees are so companionable as the elms to the red-roofed homestead which
+nestles at their feet and is glad for them. Seen from a distance, how
+delightful is this association, how delicate the contrast of tile and
+leaf and timbered barn, each lending some complement to the other's
+fairest imperfection. Perhaps there will be a whole line of distinct
+trees, and then you will see as it were a cliff-side of verdure in
+which, beneath the billowy curves of lit foliage, there open caverns and
+cool deeps of shadow fit for a Dryad's rest.
+
+To know the elm-tree you must not come too near, for it too is wild and
+does not reveal its nature lightly; you may be cooler in the shadow of
+the beech or stand drier beneath the red-stemmed leaves of the sycamore.
+Yet it suffers the clinging ivy; it was beloved of poets in old days,
+and painters love it still. It has not the walnut's vivid green nor the
+rare flush that lights up the pine-stem. Its leaves are rough and of no
+brilliance; its bark is rugged also. But in life the familiar guardian
+of home meadows, it has stood by our fathers' landmarks from generation
+to generation, and when fallen and hewn and stacked it sheds a
+fragrance which, wherever perceived in after years, brings back memories
+of wanderings in deep lanes and of the great dim barns where we played
+in childhood. In the dull winter days when only yews and cypresses wear
+their leaves, I sometimes wander to a place whose walls are hung with
+the works of many a seer and lover of elms; there seated before a few
+small frames I give them thanks for having read the dear trees truly,
+and glorified a close and barren gallery with all the breezes and
+colours of the fields: I am beyond all noise and murkiness, walking in
+the peace and spaciousness of unsullied air.
+
+To a mind now happily reverted to the primitive confidence in souls
+everywhere indwelling and creating sympathies between all things, the
+bonds of kinship between man and nature were drawn ever closer, and it
+seemed a wholly natural belief that the changes of the visible universe,
+affecting things which lived an almost personal existence, should be
+instinct with the deeper meaning of events in the drama of human
+existence.
+
+Like the every-day life of men with its imperceptible attritions was the
+insensible growth and decay of things; as the tumult of his emotions
+were the storms and catastrophes that convulse the face of nature. The
+movement never ceased; the transforming power was never wearied; the
+spectator had but to give rapt attention, to be carried beyond his poor
+solicitudes to a participation in elemental processes of change in which
+the fates of humanity were mysteriously involved. The thought of this
+indissoluble union kept alive the sense of brotherhood within me, of
+responsibility in life, of interest in all that happens; and whether it
+was the daily contraction of a pond in drought, or a battle of ants by
+the wayside, or the first tinge of autumn upon the woods, all was
+ennobled by symbolic relationships to man's experience, which in the
+unceasing flow of their perception were lustral to a solitary heart,
+without them choked and stagnant.
+
+There was a certain heath-clad ridge which like a watch-tower set above
+a city never failed to bring before the ranging eye some vision
+pregnant of those emotions by which the sense of humanity is quickened
+to a deeper consciousness of itself. The witchery of space was there
+always, and seemed to draw from the soul the clinging mists of her
+indifference. It was there that I saw nature in all her moods, and felt
+that to each my own moods responded; there that despondency, imagining
+her monotony of woe, was confuted by the saving changefulness of created
+things. I remember one day, when a summer storm was spending its fury, I
+stood upon this ridge and looked across the low lands that stretched
+away beneath me. They lay with all their boundaries confused by a pall
+of purple gloom, then darkly transparent, and dissolving before the
+returning sun, whose penetrative influence was felt rather than actually
+perceived. As I gazed, high in the veil of cloud there began faintly to
+gleam a spot of palest gold, so high that it seemed to belong to the sky
+and to have no part in an earthly landscape. Gradually it expanded, grew
+more vivid, and assumed form, other forms and tints emerged beside it,
+until at last it was revealed as a ripe corn-field on the high slopes
+across the valley, and before many moments had passed, a long line of
+downs stood out in the pure air with a sculptural clearness, as if
+during the storm all had been uprooted and moved a whole league towards
+the spot where I stood. While the rainbow spanned the plain, and the
+thunder still rolled in the distance, all the opposite heaven cleared
+almost to the furthest horizon; but there a remoter range yet lay
+half-covered by a billowy mass of clouds, like the hull of a dismasted
+ship in the folds of her fallen sails. At last even this trace of the
+battle was gone; the sun shone unopposed; the wet lands and clear sky
+were lit with an intenser brightness for their transient eclipse.
+
+Then the humanity of all these things was borne in upon my mind, and I
+was affected by these vicissitudes shadowing forth the destiny of man,
+and reminding him in their beautiful and majestic procession that nature
+endures no perpetual gloom. The sudden ruin of a bright day in deluge
+and darkness and sonorous thunder, the timid reappearance of faint
+light, the natural forms strangely emerging from the perplexed wrack
+infesting the heaven, and at last seen as never before through leagues
+of pellucid air; the thunder's silence, the final and supreme triumph of
+light;--these swift yet utter revolutions of the visible world, by very
+grace of mutability, were rich with instant consolations for the soul's
+misgiving. They served to remind me that the fears, the spiritual
+conflicts, the darkness that seems eternal, are mere incidents of a
+summer noon and leave behind them a purer and serener day. Through all
+this close intercourse with nature my mind was being prepared for a
+healthier relation to my fellow-man, and my heart saved from the
+petrification of melancholy self-regard. The ever-growing delight in
+these inanimate things, the constant discovery of new charms as
+knowledge widened with experience, united to prevent stagnation and
+despair; they kept heart and mind alert for the perception of new
+glories; and it is from a clear sense of their salutary power that I
+dwell upon them in this record of a self-tormented life. How should he
+find life colourless whose eyes are often fixed upon the sky, who sees
+grey zones of cloud flush crimson before the sunrise, and at evening the
+wide air richly glowing, moted as with the bloom of plums and the golden
+pollen of all flowers?
+
+At the end of that summer I returned to the occupations of life,
+appeased and almost happy in this inheritance of new sympathies. And
+before long I found that these were themselves but precursors of that
+which was to come, and that like the paranymphs who escort the bride,
+they did but apparel the heart for a deeper and more abiding joy. They
+were busied about me in tranquil hours, and speaking not, but seeming to
+wait in gladness for another, they made me serenely expectant also. They
+destroyed all sadness of retrospect; they led me always forward; with
+faces transparent with the light of an inward happiness they seemed to
+promise a vision at each near bending of the way. From glad looks and
+gestures assuring imminent joy, I too was charmed into a like faith, and
+went on blithely in the confidence of a coming illumination. Nor was
+that hope vain, for at length the mystery was made plain, and one day
+they brought me exulting into the presence of the Ideal Love.
+
+There is a place in every heart which must be filled by adoration, or
+else the whole will grow hard and wither like a garden whose central
+fountain is grown dry. And though the affection of mortal man or woman
+may abandon it, there remains yet this other love which by pure and
+strenuous invocation may be drawn to it, and dwell in it, to the
+ennoblement of life; so great is the care of providence for mortal need.
+Love is our need, and it is given, if we despair not of it, even to such
+as have rarely felt the glow of earthly passion. For love is of many
+kinds; yet the palest and most subtle of its forms are made real to
+those who believe, and may become the guiding influences of their lives.
+Such are the visions of the ideal love to which those glad natural
+sympathies now led me, leaving me alone awhile that I might worship the
+orient light. And when I came out from that presence I rejoiced indeed,
+for the path was clear for my return, and life was now glad with promise
+like an orchard burgeoning with white blossoms. Old memories crowded
+back on me of hours beneath the cedars with the Phædrus and the Vita
+Nuova, hours made happy with intellectual and austere delights. But now
+the joy was other than intellectual, though significant tenfold, for
+then in untried youth I had wondered at the beauty of an imaginary
+world; now with eyes that had looked on desolation I perceived that
+these visions were true. For had they been no more than airy fancies,
+they surely had not endured throughout these long ages in our laden and
+mortal air.
+
+It was not merely the beauty of a literary setting which had preserved
+them: the craftsman's skill might indeed have enhanced their natural
+splendour, but it could not have alone inspired them with this perennial
+life. The gem with fire in its heart outlives the delicate setting;
+though it may be maltreated and buried for centuries by the wayside, it
+will come to light when the gold that framed it is long battered or
+lost, and will be desired by new generations for its inherent and
+unalterable beauty.
+
+Not Plato's or Dante's creative power, but truth surviving all
+incarnations of genius, has kept this celestial gem aglow: they have but
+celebrated that which was never mortal, and guided wandering eyes to
+heaven's most beautiful star. This intangible and unincarnate vision
+exacts more from its votaries than the love which walks the earth:
+holding the lover ever in the strain of apprehension, it inures him to
+unwearying worship, and itself moving in regions incorruptible, never
+loses the glory of its first hour. The years may pass, but one face,
+like a hallowed thing, abides continually; years may fret and corrode
+other ideals, but to this they add beauties of ever fresh significance.
+The auroral glow is always round it, brightening the world, until it
+becomes an emblem of illumination and the symbol of eternal truths. This
+visionary presence wakes aspiration to new effort and touches the
+intellect with passion; beleaguered thought sallies out with new
+strength, and the frontiers of darkness recede before it. From this
+comes the quickening of the heart without which hope wanes and the mind
+is barren: the deep pure joy of contemplation awakens all that is best
+in the soul, which goes towards it on tense wings of desire. And as with
+time it draws further from the earth, and, following, the soul essays
+ever higher flights, it is often poised at a great height as in a trance
+of motion, whence it looks back upon the world it has left, and round it
+upon other worlds. Then, its love-range being wondrously expanded, it
+sees beyond that visionary countenance, which dissolves and forms again
+like a delicate wreath of mist; and clear starlight falls upon it from
+every side, so that all shadow is destroyed. And when it returns to
+earth again, and is forced to contemplate meaner things, it is now aware
+that the very soil is compacted of dust of stars, and that he who looks
+listlessly upon creation is unworthy of the human name. And so
+continually flying forth and returning, it weaves endless bonds between
+the infinitesimal and the infinite, forgetting how to despise, which is
+the heavenly science.
+
+All this ardour is awakened and sustained by love, which began in sense
+and is now transformed. Through each succeeding change it is known for
+the same divine power which has so attuned the body that it vibrates no
+more to desire alone, but is now become resonant beneath a faint and
+spiritual breath.
+
+It is an old story that love is sightless, but that is the love which
+romps among the roses and is blinded by their thorns. There is another
+and a better tradition that love's eyes pierce heaven, and this is a
+great truth; for infinity is cold and vaporous until man projects upon
+it his mortal ideal, his conception of an earthly love transfigured.
+When this beloved guide appears throned above him as in the clouds, he
+dares to lift his eyes, and there he reads through its light the divine
+purports of his existence. Is it a small thing to stand, though but for
+a moment, searching infinity undismayed? This is the celestial ocean to
+whose shore he is come; and now "drawing towards and contemplating the
+vast sea of beauty, he will create many fair and noble thoughts and
+notions in boundless love of wisdom, until on that shore he grows and
+waxes strong, and at last the vision is revealed to him of a single
+science, which is the science of beauty everywhere ... beauty absolute,
+separate, simple, everlasting, which without diminution, without
+increase, or any change, is imparted to the ever growing and perishing
+beauties of all other things."
+
+To some the great perception comes but late, rising from the ashes of
+love's common furnace. But they whose hearts have never been consumed in
+these roaring flames may find it earlier; and purged from all taints of
+jealousy and covetousness, may pass straightway into the bliss of a
+higher union. This is that supreme affiance and espousal of the soul
+wherein they may be released into a larger air, undelayed by the
+earthward longings and gradual initiations of seemingly happier men.
+Thus its servants do not decline into slothful service, but are
+strenuous always; raised above the acquiescence of use, they never know
+the cloying of fruition or suffer the barbarian conquest of
+indifference. Their soul is unaffected by material circumstance or
+misfortune, and illuminates their lives as often as in the silent hour
+of meditation they concentrate their thoughts upon its grace. The cup of
+earthly love, even the noblest, is often dipped in Pyriphlegethon, and
+the draught it offers scathes the palate until its finest sensibility is
+for ever dulled. Those who have quaffed this liquid fire can no longer
+understand his mood who leaves the roses and the wine to toil through
+deserts in search of limpid water. They think him madly ungrateful for
+God's good gifts, a fool abandoning joy proved and present for a shadow
+far and incomprehensible. But they who have not denied themselves are no
+longer fit judges of him who has renounced. They cannot know that by
+this renunciation the senses are thrice refined, and receive as a vital
+influence the stellar beam which falls chill and ineffectual upon a
+grosser frame. They cannot believe that this love from the infinite
+distance wields as mighty a force over renunciant lives as the near
+flame of passion over their own. But, for all their denial, it lives and
+puissantly reigns. It reigns in very truth predominant, this ideal love
+to which space exists not and propinquity is nothing; and it will have
+none for its subjects but those who by bereavement or aspiration or
+intense purity are inly prepared for its dominion.
+
+Happy therefore are the shy if in the midst of their tribulation they
+are guided to the gateway of so bright a kingdom. It may well be that we
+must first be led thither by some dear-remembered and virgin form once
+almost ours through earthly love, but now joined to us only by an
+imperishable and mystic union. Our sight may at first need the embodied
+beauty to give it the finer powers by which the revelation of the ideal
+grows familiar to us, but is at last attainable without mortal
+intervention by an immediate flight of the soul. Until that late day of
+enlightenment we must still be set upon the celestial path by a touch
+of human tenderness; a pure yet sensuous yearning must be ours when we
+are first girded to the ascent. If there are beings which attain the
+fulness of the ideal love without the first inspiration of a fair
+earthly form I know nothing in creation to which they may be likened,
+nor had I ever part in so rare an enfranchisement. The vision that now
+entrances my soul first arose from a living, breathing form radiant with
+earthly brightness and instinct with every charm which brings men
+fawning to the feet of women. The sensuous frenzy which lovers sing was
+also mine, the tremor of the heart, the vibration of the very life; the
+deep seventh wave of passion rioted through me also. But from the first
+amazement of the shaken being it was not given me to pass through
+satisfaction into tranquillity; I was held long in a whirl of trouble;
+in the anguish of denial I learned initiation into the mystery which is
+eternal and supreme.
+
+It is good for some of earth's children that passion should be stayed
+before it makes ashes of the fancy; for if it does but touch for a
+moment only to be withdrawn for ever, it does not destroy, but by its
+meteoric passage kindles the imagination with the glow of an
+incorruptible flame. It is with them long enough to brand upon memory
+the image which, though never renewed before their bodily eyes, by its
+very severance from perception puts on an immortality of virginal grace.
+Love is understanding, said the poet of Heaven and Hell, and love
+ennobled through renunciant years shall at the last encompass the world.
+The sensuous glow that first quickened the heart of youth is transmuted
+into a purer fire akin to that which moves the spheres.
+
+To know this truth is their compensation who are swiftly withdrawn from
+the warm radiance of earthly love. They are stricken, but before passion
+blinds them are rapt into a high solitude, whence, if they truly love,
+an infinite prospect is unrolled before them. They know desire; but as
+their passion was hopeless in this world, their steps were mercifully
+set upon a new path, whereby the bodily semblance of the beloved became
+the symbol of spiritual comeliness, alluring the beholder into the
+peace of a serene and unworldly mood. A thin and rarefied ideal, you
+say, a mirage which no wayfarer can approach: experience rejects these
+subtleties, and to these creations of a dream human affection was never
+given. True, to hearts established and content in happy unions, to minds
+preoccupied with the near cares and pleasures of a home, our distant
+visions may appear frail structures wrought in mist by homeless fancy.
+But for the exiled heart they are not such, but verities of abiding
+inspiration. For the ideal love did not die with Plato, but came again
+in mediæval Italy, and who shall say that even our material age has
+banished it from the earth?
+
+No indeed it is not dead, the ideal love, but indwells, a redeeming
+power, wherever there are desolate hearts and minds to be updrawn and
+united by its ministry; a power so lustral in its nature, that no abject
+and despairing thought creeps into its presence but is purified and
+exalted by its regard. This love brings hope and cheerful constancy;
+with a shining falchion it affrights into their natal darkness the
+monstrous forms of despair, and lends to all work a secret charm of
+chivalry. It sustains that high anticipatory mood to which life is but a
+preparation, and the bees buzzing round the honey-flowers seem poor
+things toiling for an inessential gain. Because it is mystic and
+transcendental it is the predestined guide of all whom fate holds
+removed from earthly love. This is the old device of the world's
+failures, you say, to trick themselves out in Plato's mantle or the
+schoolman's cowl, and conceal their spite beneath the pretensions of the
+mystic. But I answer that the causes which moved the Greek and the
+Florentine are still at work among mankind to-day; they have never
+ceased, however much obscured by the glare of triumphant luxury or the
+stress of miserable toil. Often when disillusion has laid bare a soul,
+this love which did but slumber awakes to contest with envy or despair
+the possession of a wounded heart. I aver that any exile from the
+happier earth whose heart is pure, if he invokes this love with ardent
+faith, may unbar his door and feel that it has passed his threshold.
+Let us never be persuaded that the ideal world is far from this earth of
+ours, or that the way to it may not be daily traversed by him who has
+submitted to the heavenly guide. Not even the close entanglement of
+common cares can avail to keep such an one from his love; but as Bishop
+Berkeley is said to have been able to pass in a moment from the
+consideration of trifling things to the throne of thrones and the seats
+of the Trinity, so this lover shall overpass with easy and habitual
+flight the barriers that hold most men life-long prisoners.
+
+For to the Spirit that is chastened and endures there is given a power
+of flight and poise, by which, if it abandon itself to the celestial
+wind, it may instantly remove from the deeper planes of life, as a bird
+by the mere slanting of its wings is carried in proud quiescence into an
+upper region of the air. He shall know instant release from the leaguer
+of disillusion and vain solicitudes; in the light of one beautiful and
+compassionate countenance the unquiet memories of failure shall give up
+their exceeding bitterness.
+
+And though the style and instinct of modern life are hostile to such
+love, though in prosperity it is ignored and in adversity often
+overborne by a vain uproar of lamentation, yet even in a self-indulgent
+and furious world it still draws many to the severe exaltation of its
+service. We cannot approach the heights where a Plato and a Dante walked
+with ease, but far beneath upon the lower slopes we can draw a breath of
+new life as we fix our weaker eyes upon the glory which they saw so
+near. Although the men who have there ascended are a supreme company, we
+may yet presume to follow; for let it never be said that the gods have
+reserved for surpassing genius the consolation of which lesser men have
+so much deeper need. But he who would reach a serener air must press
+forward strenuously; for as a mountain may have one bare and northern
+slope, and another sunlit and clothed with verdure, and yet there may be
+a path on each side to the summit, so it is with the ascent to this
+felicity. One lingers amid pleasant groves and laughing waters;
+another, undistracted by the beauty of any lower zone, but fixing his
+eyes upon the far summit, crosses the chill rocky slopes, never feeling
+the warmth of the sun and only seeing his brightness reflected from the
+highest peak. Though the ways of the two travellers lie far apart until
+the end, their endurance may be crowned with the same reward; but he who
+knew no dalliance and plucked no fruit has from the beginning seen the
+goal clearly, and lived steadfastly in its distant promise. And do you
+tell me that this is not love or joy, you who saunter in the verdant
+southern valleys breathing a present happiness with the perfume of a
+thousand flowers? Your way may lead you upward after long vicissitudes,
+but endurance will more swiftly fail you for the last most arduous
+ascent. Very love is of the heights, and he whose thoughts have long
+been thither exalted will breathe with least pain the attenuate upper
+air.
+
+To this pilgrimage the diffident are foreordained; it is their happiest
+hour when they take staff and scrip and set out in earnest for the
+shrine built among the mountains. The gardens of Armida are not for
+them, nor the warm breezes fragrant of fruit and flowers; but the vision
+of a far peak flushed at sundawn draws them onward, and strength and
+peace are increased upon them throughout the great ascent. He is still
+too rich for pity to whom renunciation brings these high and enviable
+hours.
+
+But the heavens are not opened every day, and the adept of these
+mysteries must walk the dull round of common life like other men, not
+warmed as they are by the glow of constant friendship, yet cheered by
+intermittent flames of remembrance and of hope. The real life of the
+diffident is cunningly hidden from those around them, for whom, indeed,
+it is wont to have faint interest; but before you who have often sought
+me out through fair and foul weather, I may venture to undo the pack of
+small resources which brings variety and distraction into lonely days.
+
+Firstly, I still dare to haunt the forecourts of philosophy. Into her
+inner courts I may not penetrate, lacking the leisure which her whole
+service demands; yet the loiterings which I may still enjoy are to me
+like voyages into a foreign country, and give my mind the healthful
+enjoyment of change; they are not long enough to bring that whole
+detachment from daily life which, in my case, might prove a perilous
+advantage. All that I need for common use is a simple rule based on a
+few fundamental thoughts to give me a course upon the wayward ocean, and
+though it be full of error as the Almagest, yet it shall surpass the
+thumb-rules of Philistia. It must be a doctrine which allows imagination
+her right and durable career, and therefore not be monist. For
+materialism is too wildly imaginative at the start: like a runner who at
+the outset overstrains his heart and thereafter runs no more, the
+follower of this creed, by his postulate of a blind impersonal Law,
+exhausts his power of speed and plods henceforth eyes downward over
+flattest plains of dulness. That my mind may remain curious and alert in
+isolation, I must conceive in the universal scheme a power that does
+not alone impel, but also draws me forward. For were it true that the
+sum of things blunders from change to change, swept by blind force into
+uncharted voids, I should abandon myself in despair to that hopeless
+course, and drift indifferent to the direction or the end.
+
+Let me rather believe that if each several idea is compacted by my
+active intelligence out of some vast system of relations, then only a
+supreme intelligence akin to man's can brace together the whole system
+or universal sum of things. For this earth, yes, and all the complex of
+the spheres, exist to me imperfectly as idea alone, nor can I conceive
+them any complete existence apart from a kindred but omniscient mind.
+Each advance in human knowledge should then be an infinitesimal approach
+towards the supreme comprehension; and the aspiring race of man is
+justified in that inchoation of long hope which is folly to the single
+life.
+
+I would also believe that new relations between things may be detected
+not merely by the staid and ordered process of collating abstractions,
+which is science, but by swifter and more genial methods of intuition.
+
+    "Hurrah for positive science,
+    Long live exact demonstration!"
+
+cried Walt Whitman, exulting over the filed fetters of mankind; and let
+us all echo the cry, nor ever forget the razed Bastilles of
+superstition. But there glimmers a wealth of truth in the penumbra
+beyond our lanterns to which science will creep too slowly without the
+aid of imagination. Yet this truth may be seized by swift sallies into
+the darkness, and assured to us as it were by some dim apperception of
+the soul, when the whole personality is made tense, and subtly
+anticipates the cosmic argument. Life is too short to renounce this
+daring: the sense of kinship with the All-Consciousness sanctions if not
+commands the right adventure.
+
+It was this feeling which led William Blake to exclaim in his impulsive
+way, that to generalize is to be an idiot, that direct perception is
+all, and the slow process of the inductive reason a devil's
+machination. This method of intuition is to the more sober method of
+science as the romantic to the classical spirit in literature,
+permitting to the individual mind a licence of noble vagrancy. But it
+must be a law for the ordinary intelligence to exercise the two apart,
+else it will fall into sick fancies of excitement, and by abuse of wild
+analogies lose the vital art of balance and sane comparison. Only the
+greatest minds, endowed as it were with some divine genius of
+extrication, may dare to practise the two together. So Leonardo da Vinci
+drove inference and intuition abreast without disaster, and gathered
+from purple distances of thought their wildest and most splendid
+flowers. To him, as has been well said, philosophy was something giving
+strange swiftness and double sight, clairvoyant of occult gifts in
+common or uncommon things. The doom of Phæton awaits those who now would
+follow that marvellous course; but the poetic observation of
+resemblances in things remote, which lent so rich a colour to the
+science of the Renaissance, may yet be trained in all our minds; and
+the philosophy which trusts in the slow suffusion of the worlds with
+intellectual light will bless and encourage its reasonable growth.
+
+Such a philosophy brings also a living sympathy with art. For the artist
+ever sees a perfection of truth beyond his rendering, yet always calling
+for expression; there is something eternally missed by his highest
+effort, and he can never know complacency. The philosophy which
+conceives the gradual growth of form through consciousness towards a
+perfection infinitely removed, yet in its remoteness drawing up our life
+as the moon sways the tides--this surely is the artist's wisdom.
+Idealism is like love, {apora porimos}, holding us as it were in touch
+with the intangible: it will have us conceive the Absolute without that
+helpless absorption in thought which changed Amiel's life from a
+fountain to a vapour: it would keep us near the surf and confluence of
+things. Its function is not to give any mysterious transcendental
+knowledge, but to serve culture "by suggesting questions which help to
+detect the passion, and strangeness and dramatic contrasts of life."
+And not only to bring suggestions, but repose, by granting to eyes
+wearied with minute concerns the contrasts of vast times and spaces, the
+majestic idea of the Whole; to change the focus and variously dispose
+the perspectives of familiar things.
+
+An old watchmaker, whose window overlooked a wide meadow, used ever and
+again to lay down his instruments to gaze out upon the expanse of green,
+pasturing upon it a wandering vague regard, and absorbing from it an
+assuagement of his wearied senses which, he said, served him more
+effectually after these bright interludes. The province of Metaphysics
+should be to us as to this wise workman his field; not a place to dream
+our days away in, but for occasional resort; in which we may forget the
+infinitesimal in healing visions of broad space and colour. I counsel
+every lonely man to satisfy what has been described as the common
+metaphysical instinct, and according to his powers to become a
+metaphysician. There is no discipline which so well consists with
+solitude, none which so instantly enfranchises the mind from the
+tyranny of mean self-interest or vain and envious polemics. Men do not
+grow sour and quarrelsome about the Absolute: everything that is
+polemical is inspired, as Michelet once said, by some temporal and
+momentary interest. The man who has climbed to the Idalian spring comes
+down benevolent. He does not grudge this toiling ant his grain, that
+snarling dog his bone, but is content to live serene, in the certainty
+that his soul has great provision, and that though all human things are
+small, each is worth its while. Into his hand there is given a scale by
+which life is known in its fair proportions; a tranquil joy, disturbed
+neither by dirges nor Epinician odes, is poured into his heart and
+exalts him above distraction. He respects himself as akin to that great
+Self whose perfection shall one day be known; he understands the passion
+for the ideal through which men die young; he wonders at envy and in the
+happiness of enfranchisement would have all men free.
+
+The pages of this Almagest are for the exceptional hour; but daily, as
+one bookish from the nursery, I read much in many directions. For if
+books are called the best friends of happy men, to the sad they are
+saviours also. And when I remember too clearly what I am, I turn perhaps
+most often to Lucretius. For of all those who have taken up the pen to
+assuage the miseries of men, it is he who sings most bravely of the
+great endurance. This austere enthusiast, whose soul was never fused in
+the fire of friendship; who went apart, as it were, amid thunders upon
+the lonely heights; who, without any lover, yet loved his kind so well
+that all the years of his maturity, how short and splendid a period,
+were poured forth in one song of human consolation,--this man for all
+the madness of his creed, was yet aflame with a wisdom to be called
+divine. That calm face, lit with one desire--to drive the furies from
+the way and soothe the frightened children of men, is ever among the
+nobler countenances which fancy summons about my bed. Over the anxious
+heart they flow, those slow cadences, so vibrant yet so magnificently
+passionless, until the nerves of pain cease to throb, and fear shrinks
+as a taint impossible to the patient of such a physician. It is not his
+to intimidate or denounce, to evoke visions of lurid hell, to linger
+over dire vaticinations, or apportion to each his grade of torment, but
+with cool fingers to smooth the hair back from the forehead, and in
+grave, tender accents to say: Sleep now, for it was a dream.
+
+Landor, in a fine passage, compared the merciful tolerance of the Roman
+poet with the pitiless ire of Dante, contrasting in respect of the
+quality of mercy these two poets, one in their austere perfection, but
+so different in their vision of death, and judgment, and ultimate
+reward. The seer of lost worlds has written his own defence, and was
+indeed but attacked to point the sharp antithesis; but Lucretius, though
+he owes it to a literary feint, is very finely praised. And to me it
+seems that his compassionate mood increased upon him just because he was
+not emulous of the world's gifts or earnest for its pleasures, but
+withdrew from the press, and lived out his few great years
+contemplating apart the vicissitudes of orbs and men. He did not wait in
+ante-chambers or sit at wedding feasts; but severing all entangling and
+intricate threads of observance, followed the voice which called him to
+solitary places of illimitable prospect. It was not through disillusion
+or injustice, or wounded pride, that he walked aloof; but loneliness was
+his birthright, and from the hills and headlands to which solitude
+allured his steps he saw the dust of mad encounters rise to heaven, and
+the rent sails of foundering galleys. He saw, and could not but be wrung
+with pity for man deafened to wise counsel by the noise of vanities, and
+fiercely conspiring to precipitate his doom. As he went by shore and
+upland, there gathered in his mind those resonant hexameters of warning
+or consolation, those similes from the life of husbandry and dumb
+things, which, set like diamonds in clay, lend to the most arid
+arguments their own incomparable splendour, or that homelier beauty
+which instantly pierces the defences of the heart. Not diffident as we,
+but of a nature so infinitely absent and reserved that in the legend
+his wife must concoct a philter to remind him of his love, he is of all
+the pagans the best companion for our angrier moods. An archaic and
+elemental serenity is upon his language and thought, rebuking our
+unprofitable petulance; if emotion gains him he finds utterance in those
+tremendous periods "where single words seem to gather out of the deep
+and to reverberate like thunder." As the reverberation dies away and the
+clouds are pierced by the sun, the world is seen in new lights through
+an air clear as upon rain-swept mountains.
+
+As my reading is incessant, so also is my writing. For the happiness of
+man is in his fertility, and of barrenness comes the worst despair. To
+be happy is to have issue--children, or books written, or things
+beautifully wrought, or monuments of goodness to live after you, if only
+in the memory of some tiny hamlet of the folded hills. This is the law
+of life that Diotima knew, by which flower and tree, animal and man,
+fulfil the end of their creation; and man in nothing more surely proves
+his lordship than by his many-handed hold upon posterity. For the lower
+creation is procreant in one way, but man in many; who may have
+offspring not of body alone but of mind and heart, and be so redeemed
+from the grim dismay of childlessness. The greatest human happiness is
+to be fertile in every way, a thing granted rarely in the world we know;
+the next, perhaps, is that of the parent who gives all of himself to his
+family, not tilling any field beyond the charmed walls confining his
+desire. The author sure of his fame, the born artist, the benefactor of
+his kind, are also happy, seeing their offspring grow in years and in
+the power of making a brighter world.
+
+But he is miserable who, aspiring to follow these, feels his force wane
+within him while he remains yet fatherless; or who has sons stillborn,
+or weakly, or dishonoured. I question whether sheer degradation into
+evil brings more pain to man than such sense of sterility or frustrate
+parentage. But it is no small part of human redemption that none need
+know the interminable misery. A man may have neither sons nor genius,
+but in the dark hour he can go out and give, if it be only a penny or a
+kind word, and on that foundation build a temple to receive his
+thanksgiving. To give of yourself is good. This is that grand agreement
+and oecumenical consent to which those words _quod ab omnibus quod
+ubique_ in deed and truth may be applied. For this reason meanness is of
+the deeps, and avarice groans in the lowest zone of hell. And if there
+are faces of blank and permanent despair upon your path, be sure that
+these are not masks of whole men, but of those who wilfully abstained
+from joy and have received the greater damnation. My children are mostly
+writings, poor weakly creatures dying inarticulate and unchristened,
+tenderly remembered by myself only, but at least no nuisance to the
+world. I loved them at their birth, I hold them in remembrance, though
+they were ever of a hectic and uncertain beauty.
+
+The comparison of children with branches of the olive is not the mere
+ornament of a Bible verse, but the wisdom of one who knew both tree and
+child. For as children are bright creatures of swiftly changing moods,
+so are the olive leaves in the blue southern air. I once read of an
+artist who essayed to paint a group of olives and a cypress growing
+before them. Against their silvery leaves its dark burnished form stood
+finely mysterious, the contrasting grey lending it a depth of almost
+sable colour; all was propitious for his work. Then suddenly, the air
+being to all seeming quite still, the grey-green leaves began to shake
+and quiver, until each olive tree was like a silver bonfire, tremulous
+with a thousand waves of white flame flowing and following along the
+branches. It was a revelation and swift effluence of life, perplexing
+and full of charm. The brush was laid down, the moment of inspiration
+gone, before the capricious leaves ceased their quivering to be robed
+once more in grey, casting on the ground that translucent shadow which
+tempers the sunlight only, and does not spoil it of its gold. In the end
+the canvas was covered, but with a sketch far less true and beautiful
+than the painter's first happy vision. Even so of all our children few
+attain the perfection of our dreams. While we look, some influence comes
+upon them and they are changed, some breeze, born we know not where,
+stirs them to their heart of joy while we stand perplexed; innumerable
+laughter of leaves, a rushing and a shivering in quick answer to a mere
+breath, silence as swift when unperceived it dies away--these are their
+replies to our silent invocations. We cannot follow the swift course,
+but are quickened with a glad rejuvenescence, the true prize and guerdon
+of parentage. They may grow old or die, or bring us sorrow; it is enough
+that once they so lived and stirred a pride within us. Let Hedonist and
+idealist dispute, let one worship pleasure and another wait on the
+intangible joy, but in the fathering and mothering and the bringing up
+of young children, of the flesh, the mind, or the spirit, lies the
+natural happiness of men and women. It is a joy which outlasts
+disillusions; it rests surely upon achievement and deserts which lie
+ponderable in the archangel's scales. For it is certain that he who
+creates as best he knows best serves God, the world and himself, and
+what system of Ethics has conceived a more perfect rule?
+
+All young life is instinct with such a beauty and trustfulness, that
+though he himself may have no part or lot in its creation, and be dumb
+or awkward in its presence, a man will be the brighter for having
+passed, if but for a moment, out of the darkness of his own course into
+the radiance within its orbit. To the diffident this is an especial
+grace. For children by some deeper intuition understand us as their
+parents cannot do; and when all the world is cold will often smile upon
+us with happy upturned faces. It is one of my consolations that the
+little players in the parks come running to me rather than to others
+with their eternal question after the exact hour of day. For I reflect
+that though my face grows wrinkled and drawn with years, there must yet
+hover something about its ugly surface which tells of a good will
+within. There was a time when I found the children's question
+importunate, and drew out my watch ungraciously; but now I feel
+disappointment if during their hours of play I can walk my mile without
+answering one of these high-pitched inquiries.
+
+To have the confidence of children is indeed a thing of which a poor
+wanderer may be proud, a credential confirming his self-respect, and
+worthy one day to be presented at the gate of heaven. Once during one of
+my worst hours of desolation, when I was tramping across the fields, I
+found a little maid of seven picking primroses on the edge of an old
+orchard. For some time I stood watching, so charmed with the grace of
+her movements and the beauty of the spring sunlight on her golden mane,
+that I lost all consciousness of present trouble, and beyond her fairy
+form began to see vague visions of lost happiness returning. As I stood
+thus forgetful and looking absently before me, I suddenly felt a touch
+which recalled my scattered thoughts: she had come to me and put her
+hand in mine. I think in all my lonely life I never felt so swift a
+thankfulness as that which suffused me then: the memory of it is always
+with me, and now I never see a happy child engrossed in its little task
+of duty or pleasure without thinking to myself there is one of those who
+truly have power to remit sins. I will not repeat the fond things often
+written about children. Not all of them are like the infant angels of
+Bellini or Filippino Lippi or Carpaccio; some indeed are strident, pert,
+without charm or candour, not doves but little jays; but for the
+loveliness of those who have smiled upon me, whether rich or poor,
+whether wild or tended flowers, I shall ever hold the whole company
+dear.
+
+Whether I read or write, or go painfully upon difficult paths of
+thought, like many other men whom the world dismays, I win a larger
+tranquillity and a clearer vision from an increased simplicity of life.
+I know that to use the word asceticism of one's daily practice is to
+incur the judgment of all those whom the world calls good fellows, whose
+motto is live and let live, or any other aphorism of convenient and
+universal remission. To them asceticism is the deterrent saintliness
+which renounces all joy, and with a hard thin voice condemns the
+leanings of mankind to reasonable indulgence. The ill-favour drawn down
+by ecclesiastical exaggeration upon the good Greek word {askêsis}, which
+means nothing more than the practice of fitness, has prejudiced men
+against all system of conduct bold enough to include it in their
+terminology.
+
+Kant's chapter on the Ascetic Exercise of Ethics is a fine defence of
+that training of the heart and mind which has no affinity with the
+morbid discipline of hair shirt and scourge. "The ascetic exercise of
+the monasteries," he says, "inspired by superstitious fear and the
+hypocritical disesteem of a man's own self, sets to work with
+self-reproaches, whimpering compunction and a torturing of the body. It
+is intended not to result in virtue but to make expiation for sins, and
+by self-imposed punishment the sinners expect to do penance, instead of
+ethically repenting." And again--"All ethical gymnastics consist
+therefore singly in subjugating the instincts and appetites of our
+physical system ... a gymnastic exercise rendering the will hardy and
+robust, which by the consciousness of regained freedom makes the heart
+glad."
+
+This is sound doctrine, neither ungodly nor inhuman, the word of a man
+in whose veins the warm blood yet flowed. Few pictures of venerable age
+please more than that of the old philosopher of Königsberg drawn for us
+by de Quincey in one of his miscellaneous Essays. There we see Immanuel
+Kant, leading his tranquil sane existence, giving his friends sober
+entertainment, talking brightly of mundane things, practising "the
+hilarity which goes hand in hand with virtue." For me the very
+eccentricities of his daily routine have a fascination, and I read them
+as a devout Catholic reads many a quaint passage in the _Acta
+Sanctorum_. How wise was his nightly habit, as he settled himself in bed
+before falling asleep, to asseverate with a sigh of thankfulness that no
+man living was more contented and healthier than he! Here is the true
+asceticism, the child's glad abandonment to nature maintained and grown
+articulate in philosophic age.
+
+To this beauty of plain life I cannot attain. But my own life is as far
+removed as may be from brilliant or luxurious pleasures, and I divide my
+time between the country and the town. This I do from obedience to
+reason rather than fashion; for while the country has my love, the city
+is more remedial to my peculiar pain. There the shy man may have what
+Lamb called the perfect and sympathetic solitude, as opposed to the
+"inhuman and cavern-haunting solitariness," to which his infirmity
+inclines. There he and those who rub shoulders with him on the pavement
+can "enjoy each other's want of conversation." No creature with a heart
+can jostle daily with his kind, but he wins some consciousness of kindly
+feeling. The very annoyances and constraints of propinquity are in their
+own way disciplinary, and insistent, uncongenial persons, like glaring
+red buoys with clanging bells, serve at least to keep us in the fairway
+of navigation. And in a city there are voices of cheerful exhortation
+always echoing in the higher air above the roar and the trampling, which
+in the interludes of coarser sound, or by our removal into some quiet
+court or garden, may be heard repeating their stirring watchwords of
+endeavour. We are told that no word spoken ever dies, but goes
+reverberating through space for ever. It is my fancy that only evil
+words escape into the outer void, which eternally engulfs their
+profitless message, while words of hope and helpfulness are not thus
+lightly sundered from the world that needs them, but hover still near
+above us, descending with every lull of the tumult into those ears which
+are strained towards them. The laden air of towns carries not the rumour
+of the battle only, but by the presence of these fair echoes held within
+it, gives back to the soul more health than ever it drew from the body.
+With this thought I am often consoled as I go my way through gloom and
+clamour and unloveliness, finding a Providence in places which else seem
+abandoned in the outer desolation.
+
+Nor is the vast city to be valued only for what it gives, but for its
+own wonderful self, an obvious point which need not be expanded into a
+tedious circle. The shy will naturally draw more advantage from so rich
+a field of contemplation than those who seldom walk alone. In London I
+often map out a course of wandering which in its varied stages shall
+remind me of the change in progress or decay of particular arts or
+industries or different quarters of the town. Reading their meaning in
+the light of history, I make bare walls speak to me with a personal
+voice. Let any one but acquaint himself with the styles of
+ecclesiastical or domestic architecture, or of monuments of the dead, or
+with the history of the thoroughfares he frequents, and he will be
+pleasantly constrained to reflection upon those who have gone before
+him. As he stands in the shadow of an ancient church he will think to
+himself: "By this very wall Chaucer may have stood." As he walks amid
+the reverberating ravines which are city streets he will say: "Here
+along green and silent paths the Roman legionary marched when Hadrian
+ruled the world." When once the faculty of observation has been awakened
+to a permanent alertness, the desire to be widely read in history of men
+and their arts will become irresistible; and through the knowledge
+gradually amassed it will be thought a sorry chance if any ramble of
+wider compass yield no vision which in comeliness or deformity tells its
+tale of changing fortune. To appreciate human work, and the conditions
+under which it is born, is to exult in abounding sympathy with this
+man's conquest over things poor in promise, or to condole with that
+man's failure to do the best that in him lay.
+
+As I walk by the strand of Thames, my fancy sees upon one flood the gay
+barge gliding upward to green fields, and the black hull bearing down
+the prisoner to the Traitors' Gate. If I go up Holborn, I remember that
+where this traffic now thunders John Gerard tended his Physic Garden
+when Elizabeth was queen. I know where Sarah Siddons lived; and where
+William Blake died; and my curious wanderings are now so far extended,
+that when I turn to the great book of London I seldom find a tedious
+page. The places where people strove and suffered evoke before me the
+forms of men and women dead but unforgotten, and if I am alone I am not
+aware of loneliness.
+
+London is the central wonder, but wonderful also in spirit and
+suggestion are those old places which ring it round: these I often
+frequent at every season, and carry their portraits over my heart. Let a
+man once learn to know them, and his memory shall never starve; he will
+never forget the hour when first they yielded him up their secret. Many
+moments of intimate delight do I treasure in remembrance, moments when I
+was suddenly aware that all previous impressions were the poor
+gatherings of purblind eyes; but I will only tell you of one, which may
+suffice to show what riches lie ever open to those who roam in solitude.
+
+It was mid-April and the close of a cloudless day. I had been to the
+Observatory hill at Greenwich to see the sun set over London, looking
+for such a transfiguration of the grey city as should reveal its line of
+warehouses lying along the horizon in a mist of splendour like the walls
+of the New Jerusalem. So I had seen it before, marvellous and refined in
+unearthly fire: but to-day, in a sadder mood, and hungering more deeply
+for the vision, I looked out to the west in vain. For the wind had set
+in from the east, and driven back upon the town a zone of iron-grey
+smoke, ragged along its upper edge like a great water blown to spray,
+but merging below with those gloomy and innumerable buildings. Upon this
+the sun, which all day had ridden in a clear air, was slowly falling,
+losing radiance with every minute, until as it approached that gloomy
+spray it was luminous no more, but a dull red orb whose light, like a
+flame withdrawn into the consumed heart of coals, glows for awhile
+beneath a gathering film of grey. In a few minutes it descended, as if
+sadly and of resolution, into the murky sea, where for a moment its red
+curves seemed to refine the smoke into translucency; but at last the
+dun waves gathered upon it dark and voluminous, drowning it so deeply
+that the clearer sky above was instantly robbed of the wonted
+after-glow. Some pale reflection there was in the upper heaven, ensuring
+a time of twilight, but no glory; and smitten with a congruous sadness,
+I went down to the river. But there, pacing to and fro as if upon a
+quarter-deck, with the water lapping upon the wall beneath, I lived one
+of the happy hours of life, redeemed from disappointment, and carried
+far into a magical world.
+
+The flood tide, which had turned for more than an hour, was now racing
+down wilful for the sea, though the breeze ruffling its surface seemed
+to thwart and stay its eager course. And on the surface, indeed, chafed
+and broken into innumerable ripples, the wind triumphed; but as one
+looked westwards towards the city, it was clear that the sullen strength
+of stream and tide had the mastery. For over the broad curving reach,
+lit like white unburnished silver with the reflection of the pallid sky,
+there glided forward a line of barges each with every red sail set, and
+as silent as if they sallied from a besieged city. One by one they hung
+out their lights, the lamps swaying and casting yellow bars over the
+quivering water, until in perfect silence all passed down before me.
+Each in turn attaining the lower bend where the river sweeps northward,
+went about and stood for the Middlesex shore; and then for a moment the
+wind seemed to overcome the tide, for before the boat could win new way,
+lying almost broadside across the stream, the breeze held her
+motionless, like a tired bird on a windy day when it flies out from the
+shelter of the wood. It was but for a moment, and then the blunt bows
+glided forward towards the north bank, and another barge succeeded in
+the gathering gloom.
+
+And so it was until all were passed. The departing light drew the
+colours from the red sails and the silvery brightness from the river;
+all forms became outlined in black upon what uncertain light remained.
+Two men put off in a boat from an anchored ship; the mingled sound of
+their oars and voices came with subdued tone as if out of an infinite
+distance. Then the whole reach lay bare and silent for a while, and only
+the little waves lapping upon the stone steps played an accompaniment to
+my dream.
+
+The hour and the place compelled to reverie, and memory consenting to
+their evocative charm, I peopled the still scene with the forms of those
+who had swayed or shared the fortunes of this land; imperious Elizabeth
+and gentler Mary, the slight heroic figure with one sleeve pinned empty
+on the breast, and all those who, going down to their business in deep
+waters or returning therefrom, have saluted with melancholy or with joy
+these towers and this wooded hill. I thought of the lads playing beneath
+these trees, and so inbreathing the spirit of this place that for them
+there was no career but to follow the river down to ocean, and ocean
+himself in his circuit of the world. I thought of the veterans returned
+from that quest, old Argonauts of a later day, now clustering round the
+Hospital fires and perhaps recalling amid tales of havens and high seas
+the very morning when they first dropped round the bend and passed into
+the new world beyond. For this Thames is such an avenue and entry into
+marvellous life that earth can show no greater rival, none more rich in
+dignity or in the multitude of its merchandise. And if the flood of that
+merchandise shall cease, and the stream once more go lonely to the sea
+or carry coracles, it cannot be again as if it had never borne great
+ships, or swung the Admiral's galley on its tide.
+
+It is good for an Englishman to stand here and listen to the brown
+waters lapping on the old walls and caulked timbers; to hear, as an
+under murmur, voices of Lechlade and Bablockhythe, for all intervening
+leagues of wood and meadow not altogether lost: before this persistence
+and continuity of youth to feel high thoughts stir within him and
+solemnize the nativity of new resolve. You cannot feel beneath your feet
+these old stones trodden by the great generations of your own blood and
+kindred, and not be moved to walk uprightly, to be approved by their
+shades as one not unworthy of such descent. For whether such worn
+stones be in the aisle of some great minster, or here, paving this
+narrow way for hurrying feet, the inspiration is as strong and the
+thankfulness not other. For this is a place of meridian, the navel of
+our land and empire; the wind searching its alleys has no usual voice,
+but as it were a deep and oceanic sound, according with old ballads and
+stories of the sea.
+
+I lingered leaning upon the rail until the tide had fallen from the
+wall, tracing along the narrow pebbled foreshore a clear marginal line
+of irregular contour, now sinuous, now straight, but palely luminous
+like a silver tone on some enamel of old Italy, a line drawn by a master
+draughtsman, in its inevitable and sure perfection wholly satisfying the
+eye. With the dark bank it vanished towards the great city, now marked
+in the upper sky by a hovering brightness of light escaped beyond the
+smoky rampart to tell the effort of innumerable lamps beneath, all
+pouring their blurred and vain effulgence to the disdainful stars.
+
+Moreover, the city will give the shy man all the consolations of art,
+philosophy and literature of which his education or experience may have
+made him worthy. He can see great pictures or read great books at little
+cost, and find in them the truest of friends in need. It is so obvious
+that a solitary of any culture will find relief with such companions,
+that here I take for granted his resort to their aid, and will only
+mention two resources from which the real recluse often draws less
+advantage than he might, I mean orchestral music and the drama. Any man
+of feeling who hears a great symphony ceases to be self-centred with the
+first movement; he goes out of himself, and rides upon waves of sound,
+exalted by this majesty of collective effort. No other music thrills his
+whole being like this, which sweeps him with all around into the very
+course of changing fates. In the confluence of dim hopes and passions
+which rise above the harmonies like smoke-wreaths riding the red flame,
+the soul glows interfluous with other souls and is elated with the
+inspiration of their presence. He bears arms exulting who never had
+comrades till now; his will is absorbed in confederate joy and human
+force unanimous. In this abandonment of the whole being, the diffident
+know their fellows near, and in the ecstasy of shared emotion learn the
+full measure of their humanity. Philosophers in all ages have known and
+taught the power of music in compelling ten thousand to the love of one,
+and so ennobling an infinite multitude in the glow of a common emotion.
+Sound was the first instinctive language, one for man and winds and
+waters; and music, which is the development of this primeval converse,
+leaving to grammars the expression of cold and abstract thought, has
+gathered about her in her mountain caverns the echoes of all sighs sad
+or passionate, of all inarticulate cries born of aspiration or desire,
+and there blended them into eternal harmonies which at her word flow
+forth and join the hearts of men.
+
+Indeed, that swift responsiveness of feeling which music thus awakes is
+a gift beyond gems of Golconda; not youth's swift effusion cheaply given
+and soon forgotten, but the vibration of a heart stirred in sympathy
+with some profound note of life, as the dyed pane stirs and quivers
+when the organ gives forth its deepest tones. Sentiment is a draught of
+old wine passing into the veins and enriching the blood, until in the
+generous glow all the privations and the stints of loneliness are
+forgotten. Pure emotion is like righteous anger, which may be lawfully
+indulged if the sun go not down upon it; and as he who shrinks from all
+fire of wrath lives but a vaporous life, so he who will never be moved
+is proud of a poor crustacean strength, like the limpet, winning
+darkness in exchange for dull stability. As for me, in the propitious
+hour when the heart longs for expansion, I give it honourable licence,
+and quicken its unfolding by spells of magical words. At such times I
+invoke the aid of passionate souls, not shrinking even from the vain,
+provided that they loved greatly and give great expression to their
+humanity. Such is that wild lover of George Sand whose _Souvenir_, for
+all its rhetoric, charms like an incantation. The ancients quenched the
+ashes of the pyre with red wine, as if the blood of the god-given vine
+could hearten the spirit that yet hovered near. Over my ashes let no
+wine be poured, but read me such verses high and valiant, that if my
+soul yet lingers undelivered from the earth's attraction it may be
+regenerated and set free into a braver life.
+
+And let the lonely man be an assiduous frequenter of the playhouse, for
+the drama will also open the world's heart to him, and that by a plainer
+and less elusive speech. Seated in the theatre among his kind, he knows
+a deeper pleasure than other men; for while to these the changing scene
+brings remembrance or anticipation of familiar things, to him it reveals
+whole vistas of life which, except in dreams, his feet may never tread.
+When the curtain is rung down, and he goes out into the street, for a
+while at least his existence is transformed. All those front doors
+aligned in their innumerable sequence, which in daylight or darkness he
+passes when he wanders alone, are now no longer barred against him; they
+open at the touch of his fancy, and he sees within the light of
+homeliness, where father, mother, and child weave round warm firesides
+their close conspiracies of affection. At last he knows what is passing
+behind those bars; like an old family friend he takes his place by the
+fire and receives as of right the confidences which in his real lonely
+life never find their way to his ears. He helps the lovers to build
+their cloudy castles, he reasons away the parents' care, he goes
+up-stairs with a shaded candle to look in upon the children sleeping.
+Good women unlock the jewel-caskets which are their souls; happy maidens
+are sisterly with him; strong men grapple him to their hearts and call
+him friend. He that was vagabond has now innumerable homes, and of the
+faces that fleet by him out of doors there are always some which seem to
+give him greeting.
+
+These secret and unavowed alliances transfigure the unlovely streets,
+and light in the cavernous blank houses many a glowing and familiar
+hearth. As he goes on, careless of distance or direction, he is now
+inwardly busy with fresh and delightful dreams. He plights his troth and
+earth is Eden; he imagines brilliant hours for the dream-children who
+go by his side, holding each of his hands. And if the visions change,
+and sorrow or sin pass in over a familiar threshold, what generous
+abnegation, what pity, what righteous wrath does he not know, until the
+plastic power of fancy moulds out of this poor recluse a man like other
+men. Amid these visionary sympathies time goes quickly by, and returning
+to his voiceless dwelling he has stored up such wealth of dreams that he
+can even endure the supreme test when the lonely man finds himself
+sitting in the wan light with no one near him to whom he is dear. Of the
+strength and peacefulness which bring him safely through that hour of
+desolation he owes much to the players, who have shot the drab texture
+of life with an infinity of bright and tender hues, so that he can bear
+to turn it in his hands and look upon it with a wistful pleasure. I say,
+then, let the shy man frequent the playhouse, and there facet and
+burnish his dulled mind until it reflects, if it may not touch, the
+many-sided world.
+
+For the discipline of sympathy, for the quickened sense of comradeship
+in work, for the very presence of that unloveliness which compels
+sympathy, I dwell more months in the town than in the country-side. But
+remembering what Nature did to save me, and owing her an endless debt of
+filial duty, I return to her in the summer days, and to make up for the
+long months of separation cling nearer to her than most of her truant
+sons. For communion with Nature, the ideal joy of country life, is not
+attained by the sportsman or the mere player of games, who think of
+their bodies chiefly, and use as a means to rude physical vigour the end
+ordained for the fine contentience of body, mind, and spirit. Again I
+will pass by the obvious and familiar resources of outdoor life, and
+speak only of such as men are unaccountably prone to neglect.
+
+There is a way of learning nature which in this wet land is mostly
+followed by tramps and vagrants; the way of sleeping beneath the stars.
+So far is this joy from the thoughts of most men, that even George
+Borrow felt a strange uneasiness when for the first time the darkness
+descended upon him in the open country. I think we carry with us all our
+lives that fear of night with which nursery tales inspired our
+childhood; it reinforces the later more reasoned fear of boisterous
+weather, or of the men who walk in darkness because their works are
+evil. We shrink from night as a chill privation of daylight, as a gloom
+which we must traverse, but not inhabit; the distrust becomes with years
+instinctive and universal, and the nearest approach to friendly relation
+with night attained by most of us is a timid liking for the twilight
+hours. Yet as the sun rises alike upon the just and upon the unjust even
+so does he descend, and we put a slight upon Providence if we abandon to
+rogues and rakes that wonderful kingdom of the darkness of which by
+natural prerogative we are enfranchised. By never using our proper
+freedom, we give them prescriptive licence of usurpation, so that the
+hours in which the heavens are nearest to us are become the peculiar
+inheritance of thieves.
+
+I confess that on the night when first I set out to do without a bedroom
+I too felt all the force of the traditional mistrust. I heard human
+whispers in the wind, and saw the shadows of walls and trees as forms of
+men lurking to spring out against me. The movements of roosting birds
+startled me as I passed; the sudden silences startled me more. And when
+I had spread my gear on the ground and settled down to rest, the sense
+of exposure on every side made sleep impossible; time after time I
+seemed to hear footsteps stealthily approaching; and there was a
+strangeness pervading everything which to my nervous fancy was simply
+provocative of apparitions. This lasted many nights; and whether I
+established myself on the edge of a copse, or in the open grass, or in a
+hammock beneath two trees, I continued a prey to the same uneasy
+wakefulness. But then, as if satisfied of good faith by such
+perseverance, the night began to wear a friendly aspect, the shadows
+gave up their ghosts, and the breezes became the expected messengers of
+slumber.
+
+When the lonely sleeper-out has grown familiar with the moonlight and
+the darkness, he is admitted into the number of earth's favoured sons;
+for lying like a child upon her bosom, he hears her heart beating in the
+silence, and wakes to see her smiling in her beauty like a queen
+apparelled. To no man slumber comes more gently than to him; and his
+uprising is as that of a child exulting in the cloudless day. Health and
+innocence return to him, and his one sorrow is that he has lived into
+maturity without continually partaking of these sane and natural
+delights. Remorse is his that for all these years he has feared the dews
+and shrunk from the bland night airs; and remembering the needless
+imprisonment of a hundred chambers, he mourns over the irrecoverable
+hours which would have rooted his life more deeply in tranquillity and
+strength. But the June sun is up, and the birds are singing: he strides
+with light step over the grass, watching the rabbits play in the glades,
+and in unison with a host of fellow-creatures singing a welcome to the
+dawn. When it is time for him to think of home and he comes once more
+beneath a doorway, he has a mind refreshed by the quietude of dim space,
+and a heart replenished with innocence and good-will. He who so sleeps
+hates no man, and will go upon the dullest way free from petulance or
+despair. The scent of the rich earth is in his nostrils, and the
+clearness of morning air has passed into his eyes.
+
+I have made my lair in many places since I first kept house with Nature.
+I have couched in heather by the pines of hills far above the Sussex
+Weald; I have lain in dry furrows or on the margin of a copse, or in the
+parks of the children of fortune, for whose welfare, in gratitude for
+their unconscious hospitality, I shall ever pray. But of all wild
+resting-places I have known, the openest are the most delightful. To see
+the whole sweep of the stars; to lie on the shorn ground free of all
+that overshadows or encompasses or confines; to breathe in the great
+gulf of air; to stretch unhindered limbs--this is an initiation into a
+new life, a pleasant memory in the long glooms of winter. Let nothing
+come between you and the stars, that they may look well upon your face,
+and haply repenting of some ancient unkindliness, draw you at this
+rebirth a new horoscope of blessing and fair fortune. And if slumber
+tarries when you lie in an open spot, you may consciously ride the great
+globe through space, and like the shepherd watching by his flock in the
+clear night while star rises after star, grow aware of the great earth
+rolling to the east beneath you.
+
+In these still hours of night or early dawn there steals upon the
+charmed mind an Orphic sense of worship and inexplicable joy. For here
+on bare uplands and wooded hills, where the starlight rains down through
+the silence, or the day, welling up over the rim of the downs, glides
+fresh from the lips of ocean, a calm river of light, here is the place
+of Dionysus, of him born from fire and dew, Zagreus the soul of clean
+souls and wild lives, his heart a-quiver with vague sadness drawn from
+all the worlds, Eleutherios, loosener of heart and lip, the regenerator,
+the absolver, the eternally misunderstood, whose true followers are
+priests of impassioned pure life, whose wine is not juice of grapes but
+the clear air ambient upon the hills. Here when sleep is shamed away by
+expectant awe, the whole being grows one with all-environing life;
+personality glides into the stream of cosmic existence, lost and found a
+thousand times in the trance and ecstasy of dim divine feelings beyond
+the power of words inexpressible. It is miracle; it is religion; it is a
+feast of purification above pomps or mysteries, a cleansing ritual
+without victims and undefiled. In such hours, and in such hours alone,
+man and things are joined in a supreme utterance of life high and
+humble, transient and immortal, by which the fellowship of all
+existences within the universe is made real and significant to the
+initiate mind. For in the day fences are about us, roofs and towers
+impend above our heads, we are cribbed in streets and markets, the din
+of rhetoric or sordid bargaining fills our ears. Or if we withdraw into
+some still chamber, yet the walls built by hired hands offend, and the
+doorposts of sapless timber; no high influence can penetrate to us save
+through the close court of memory, and compared with the breezy starlit
+meadows, how poor an avenue to the soul is that!
+
+And the exuberant sun of noon distracts, and the multitude of his beams
+is troublous, for what does sight avail if the things of the heart's
+desire are lost in immeasurable perplexities of light? For in the high
+day the quivering bright air is more opaque than the dim spaces of
+night, so tranquil and severe, or the glowing kingdoms of the morning.
+At the springing of the day the eyes open upon awakening flowers, giving
+filial heed to the marvellous earth which waits in patience for a human
+greeting. I like the passage in which Chaucer tells how in May-time his
+couch was spread in an arbour upon the margin of the grass, that he
+might wake to see the daisies unfold their petals. Sleeping thus, he
+also must have known those intervals of slumber when a sense of some
+impending wonder grows too strong for sleep, and all nature seems
+calling to high vision. Often I have been thus awakened, not by noise
+or movement, but as it were by some strange prescience of beauty
+constraining me to rise and look. Once I was drawn some distance round
+the corner of a copse, and there, low in the sable-blue of the sky, in a
+rivalry of intense but dazzling light, the crescent moon hung splendid
+over against a great constellation which glittered like a carcanet of
+diamonds. They seemed to speak together as if in some scene or passage
+of celestial drama, nor did I know which was the diviner speech, the
+moon's unwavering effulgence or that leaping coruscation of the stars.
+Nothing stirred on the right hand or the left, but earth and air were
+hushed, as if before that colloquy all sound and motion were
+miraculously holden. Tall trees brown with densest shadows were massed
+upon one side, obscuring half the heaven, and lending by their
+contrasted gloom that sense of wizardry in natural things which enchants
+the clear summer nights when the air is still.
+
+This is but one among many visions of which the remembrance makes life
+worshipful; and it is pity that at the hour of their coming well-nigh
+all whom they should delight lie chambered within brick walls, lost in
+sleep or in the mazes of unprofitable thoughts. For these things in
+their rare appearances are more precious than an hour's slumber, were it
+dreamless as a child's, or all the watches of luxurious unrest. If
+another summer is given me I hope to take the road when July has come
+with balmy nights, and wander days at a stretch with all I need upon my
+shoulders. Then I shall know the real joy of vagrancy, caring little
+where night finds me, and quickening my steps for nothing and for no
+man. I shall linger in every glade or on every hill-top which calls to
+me to stay; I shall tell all the hedgerow flowers, and lean over the
+gates to watch the foals playing. The brooks shall be my washing-basins,
+and I shall quench hunger and thirst in the tiled kitchens of lonely
+farmsteads. If I hear the shriek of a train I shall smile when I think
+of its cooped and harried passengers, and plunge devious into some
+pathless wood, in whose depths the only sounds are the tap of the
+woodpecker's bill or the measured axe-strokes of the woodman. I shall
+fling myself down to rest under what tree I will, and pulling from my
+pocket the book of my choice, I shall summon a wise and cheerful
+companion to my side as easily as ever oriental magician called a jinn
+to do him service. I shall once more be commensal with wild creatures,
+and wonder that solitude was ever a pain; I shall be healthily
+disdainful of the valetudinarian who lives to spoil either his body or
+his soul.
+
+These are the wanderings which henceforward will chiefly suffice to my
+need. For since I roamed my fill in other continents the gadfly may no
+longer sting me out of my tranquil haunts. In their youth lonely people
+suffer more than others from that restlessness which fills the mind with
+sudden distaste for the present scene, and a fierce longing to be
+somewhere far away. Others are preserved from it by the love of home;
+but we, in our poverty of attachment, listen more readily to the
+depreciating voice.
+
+I remember how deep had always been my longing to look out upon the sea
+from some Greek island, and how one day, when this desire was granted,
+and I walked along hills set high above the blue Ægean, I was seized
+with an instant yearning to be instead upon Ranmore Common in Surrey.
+Yet at that moment a life's ambition was being fulfilled; I stood in a
+scene of incomparable beauty, gazing down on those deep azure waters
+whose voice is always to me as a lament for wandering Odysseus; the
+lower slopes were rich with olive trees, powdering with silver the
+tilled lands round a beautiful monastery lying there in its enchanted
+rest. Dark cypresses rose amid white walls of villages, by the contrast
+of their gloom making all bright colours glorious; away to the left,
+where the shore verged westward tracing inimitable curves between field
+and sea, lay slumbering a little white town with minarets and walled
+gardens and tiny haven--a very place for Argonauts; and yet my thoughts
+turned to the chalk downs of England and honeysuckle crowning the
+unfruitful hollies. _Sed quia semper abest quod aves praesentia
+temnis_;--Such desire has distracted Roman minds; the perversity is very
+old; and perhaps only children find no disillusion in the accomplishment
+of a dream.
+
+For our feet have one country and our dreams another, and there is no
+constancy in us. It is not alone in the bartering of one earthly scene
+for its fellow that we suffer the sick thirst of change; but into the
+rarest hour of achieved ideal to which hope promised her supreme
+satisfaction, the same wayward longing will often find a way; as in a
+sacred place amid the purest and most exquisite meditations of the soul,
+there will suddenly flit inexplicable shadows of irreverence, with
+echoes of incongruous voices from the abandoned world.
+
+But now as the years pass and the penury of human love has made the home
+woods and fields more dear, I feel that this unrest is drawing to its
+end. For as the seasons pass over the uplands and the meadows, clothing
+them with new splendours between the seed-time and the harvest, no
+vision rises upon the memory dearer and more beneficent than theirs. As
+the lover's fancy dwells upon the image of his beloved in this or that
+environment, and thus or thus arrayed, so I see the woods and fields in
+the various glories of the year and know not in which garb I love them
+best. They have heard my laments, my confidences, all my broken
+resolves: they are bound to me by so pure and intimate an affection that
+all those grander wonders of the world should never draw me again from
+this allegiance. Not for the vision of Himalaya piercing the heaven, or
+the sunsets of Sienna, or the moonlight on the Taj Mahal, or for any
+other beauty or any wonder shall I weary of the cornfields framed in
+elms or the great horses turning in the furrow against the evening sky.
+
+For with the growth of years our desires wander less, and are mercifully
+contracted to the scope of our wearying powers. We haunt the same old
+places and want the same old things, dwelling amongst them with an
+increasing constancy of devotion. For we find that year by year the old
+places and things are not really the same; something has touched them in
+our absence; strange still agencies have intervened, long silences of
+dissolution and the ineluctable fate of change. And so that perfect
+sameness which we find unattainable takes on the quality of ideal and
+demands the grown man's devotion, as the change that is forbidden casts
+its resistless spell over the guarded and tethered child. The eyes of
+youth are on the far end of the vista, those of age upon the near; the
+old horse that has drawn the coulter through the clay is glad for the
+four hedges of the paddock which irk the growing colt's desire. When
+Richard Jefferies was asked why he walked the same lane day after day,
+at first he was at a loss for a reply; but gradually the reason became
+clear to him. It was because he had become aware of the iron law:
+_Nothing twice_: he wanted the same old and loved things not twice but
+endlessly; he was yearly more eager to be with them, and paint indelibly
+upon his memory their delicate quiet beauty, their soft and perishable
+charm.
+
+That is how I also feel, as with the return of summer I wander out into
+the old meadows and climb the familiar hills; I find myself hoping that
+nothing is changed, and am stirred with sweet anxieties of reminiscence.
+And surely within the enchanted boundaries of the counties where I
+ramble, there is variety which not the hundred eyes of Argus could
+exhaust. These fields and woodlands in high summer feast all the senses
+with a surfeit of delights. How good it is to exercise in all its range
+the fine mechanism of the body, suffering each part of it to indulge its
+own hunger after beauty; to feel the texture of petals, and draw the
+long grasses through the fingers; to breathe an air laden with the scent
+of blossoms, passing from uplands fragrant with bean-flowers into
+untilled regions odorous with pines; to hear the birds' chorus at
+sunrise and the distant sound of reaping; to see innumerable marvels;
+the belts of clover mantling wine-dark in the wind; the poppies in the
+standing corn, the carmine yew-stems on the downs; above you the soft
+grey clouds delicately floating; below you, as the day declines, some
+distant lonely water emerging in its glory to be the mirror and refuge
+of all heaven's light; to remember the gorse and broom and look forward
+to the royal purple of the heather--all this is a consummation of pure
+life, a high, sensuous pleasure penetrating to the inmost soul, and of
+such exceeding price that to disdain its offerings or to pass incurious
+before them, is to live in the blindness of the tribe of Genseric.
+
+In such wanderings the mind is filled with slow and seasonable thoughts,
+lasting as the trees and buildings of the country-side. Old deliberate
+contemplations, perceptions after long regard ingathered from abundant
+nature, theories leisurely compacted in sunshine or storm, to stand in
+the fields of memory, crowned with beauty by the indulgent years. So in
+the visible meadows stand the ancient barns, with roofs of umber tiles
+parcel-gilded with old gold of lichen, and crowning their seasoned
+timbers "as naturally as leaves"; restful structures of a quiet age,
+capacious of dim space, unvexed by the glare of a hundred summers.
+
+And if you ask what profit is here for one who must do battle in the
+loud world, study for a while the artifice and industrious policy of
+plants by which they attract to themselves the visitants they need or
+with most masterful defence repel the importunate advance, and you will
+return to the societies of men, even to their parliaments, enriched with
+arts of prudence beyond the practice of Machiavel. Examine the dog-rose
+upon the hedge, how by putting forth thorns it raises itself to the
+light and ranges irresistible along the leafy parapets; see how the
+flowers adapt their form and colour to the convenience of the bee or the
+predilections of the bird; consider the furze armed with spines against
+browsing muzzles, and be near when it casts its seed wide upon the
+earth; and then say if among states or governments there is a wiser
+economy or an intelligence more provident of its end. I myself have the
+conceit that if time, revoking my sentence of superannuation, should
+restore my lost years and add youth to the wisdom learned along the
+hedges, even I, a very profitless weed, should not again so uncivilly
+decay, but flower to another June and see my seed multiply around me.
+
+Perhaps, if that might be, I should strive to learn thoroughly, and
+bring science to bear upon experience. But, as I am, classifications and
+dissections are repellent to my fancy. I cannot get to the hearts of
+flowers by any Linnæan approach, but go rather by the old animistic way,
+still honoured by Milton through his Genius of the Woods:
+
+    "When evening gray doth rise I fetch my round,
+    Over the mount and all this hallowed ground,
+    And early, ere the breath of odorous morn
+    Awakes the slumbering leaves."
+
+So I greet the blossoms of hill and upland and water-meadow, knowing
+them all by their country names, and sometimes fancying that they know
+me back: all that is lacking is the tutelary power to guard their growth
+and prolong their bright and fragrant lives. What fine old names they
+have, great with the blended dignities of literary and rural lore;
+archangel, tormentil, rosa solis or sun-dew, horehound, Saracen's
+wound-wort, melilot or king's clover, pellitory of Spain! I cannot
+coldly divide so fine a company into bare genera and species, but
+imagine for them high genealogies and alliances by an imaginative method
+of my own: to me the lily and the onion shall never be connections.
+
+If I must read books on flowers, I take down such a one as Nicholas
+Culpeper's _Complete Herbal_, written from "my house in Spitalfields
+next the Red Lion, September 5th, 1653." For here is a man who attempers
+science with the quaintest fancies after the manner of his generation,
+and delightfully misinterprets the real affinity of the flowers and the
+heavens. "He that would know the operation of the herbs must look up to
+the stars astrologically," says this master; and so to him briony is "a
+furious martial plant," and brank ursine "an excellent plant under the
+dominion of the moon." Of rosemary he says, "the sun claims privilege in
+it, and it is under the celestial ram," and of viper's bugloss, "it is
+a most gallant herb of the sun." The bay-tree rouses him to real
+eloquence, though not for Apollo's sake. "It is a tree of the sun and
+under the celestial sign of Leo, and resists witchcraft very potently,
+as also all the evils that old Saturn can do to the body of man; for
+neither witch nor devil, thunder nor lightning will hurt a man in the
+place where a bay-tree is."
+
+Reading in this old book of the ordinance and virtues of the familiar
+herbs, I escape from the severities of botanical science into a maze of
+queer fancies, well suited to those retrospective hours when we love
+best what we least believe. And by the pleasant suggestion of astrology
+I am led on to contemplate the starry heavens, which I do in the ancient
+pastoral way, peopling them with mythical forms and connecting them with
+the seasonable changes of rustic toil. I forget for the moment all the
+discoveries of Copernicus and Kepler, and see eye to eye with
+Cleostratus of Tenedos who nightly watched the stars from the sacred
+slopes of Ida.
+
+Much as the companionships of nature have meant for me, I would not have
+any man content himself with these alone. It is not right to live the
+slave of Pales, or become the rhapsode of docks and nettles. To be all
+for the lower life, were it the fairest, is derogation; and Har and Heva
+before they may enter into their kingdom of the flowers must first be
+fallen spirits. But continually in the interludes of human endeavour to
+rebathe the mind at these clear wells does indeed exceedingly purify and
+strengthen against the returning and imminent encounter. Those long
+retreats at Walden may not often be repeated, for man is either risen
+too high or too far fallen to live well in the sole company of animals
+and flowers. What sociologists call the consciousness of kind is as
+vital to man as the consciousness of self; and to pine for adoption into
+an alien kind is vain on this side transmigration.
+
+Not seldom my wanderings in town and country lead me to quiet
+churchyards, or to those vast cemeteries where the living have
+established the dead in avenues and streets of tombs after their drear
+suburban fashion. Solitude has ever persuaded to the contemplation of
+death, and in these silent places I feel no shock of sadness but am
+rather possessed by a familiar spirit of peace. As I wander from path to
+path, my fancy is not lamed by mournful thoughts, but finds suggestion
+amid the poor laconic histories by which these headstones appeal to him
+that passes by.
+
+It is with most men a natural desire to take their last rest in some
+green God's acre, far from the smoke and turmoil of towns, lying in a
+fair space amid a small company, where there is a wide prospect of
+tilled lands, and the reapers cut the swathes against the very
+churchyard wall. And this is my most usual aspiration; yet there are
+times when I would not shrink in thought from the Valley of Ezekiel, and
+would be content to be written a mere number in some city of the dead,
+where at last after all the loneliness of life I should no longer be
+kept apart, but be gathered to my fellows where they lie in their
+thousands, and be received a member of their society. And though I well
+know that it matters not a cummin-seed whether my bones are washed to
+and fro on the bed of the sea or my ashes cast to the winds of heaven,
+yet I humour this fancy, and find a quiet pleasure in the thought that
+death at least may end this isolation.
+
+And what if the propinquity of these poor remains be gage and promise of
+a sympathy of souls unveiled and unhidden by false semblances of the
+body? Then should death indeed be the crown of a long desire and give me
+at the last the fellowship into which life denied initiation. Surely, as
+Coleridge dreamed, there is a sex in souls, which, disengaged from the
+coarse companionship of the flesh, shall see into each other's crystal
+deeps. Thence, in new life, when the last recondite secret is withholden
+no longer, there shall come forth those qualities and powers that
+ennobled man and woman in mortality; they shall come forth in all their
+several strength and beauty, divinely animate, and reflecting upon each
+other bright rays and soft colours invisible upon these misty oceans of
+our navigation.
+
+It is not terrible to think, at times, on death, for that _danse
+macabre_ which troubled the fancy of our forefathers is now danced out,
+and the silent figure that knocks at every door comes not as a grinning
+skeleton but as one of more gentle countenance than any art can express.
+The natural change, which to William Blake was but the passing out of
+one room into another, is well personified in the merciful figure with
+the kind eyes, coming at the sounded hour to lead away into quietness.
+My solitude has taught me to know well those noble efforts which art has
+made to lift from our bowed backs the burden of the fear of death: I
+like to look upon that youthful Thanatos carved upon a column from the
+temple of the Ephesian Diana, and every year the red leaves of autumn
+persuade my steps to that village rich in elms where lived one who also
+saw death so, and laboured to draw the frightened eyes of men from the
+hour-glass and the skull to the gracious vision of the deliverer and
+friend. There hands which were dear to him have raised a place of
+leave-taking upon a green slope, a house of farewell set upon the shore
+to receive the last pledges from the living to the absolved and
+unburdened dead.
+
+When first I saw Compton it was a cloudless noon in August, the day of
+days in which to come alone into this silent place. Out of the fiery
+heat beaten from wall and path like a blinding spray of light, it is a
+passage into a dimness of cool space, an air glaucous as the shade of
+olives. There from the circuit of a dome look down kind faces of
+immortal youth, in form and habit too tranquil for our life, but made
+homely to us by the mercy in their eyes, and some quality of the white
+soft hands which draws all weariness and all pain towards them. To me it
+was as though some furious struggle in the waves were over, and swooning
+out of life I had awakened upon a floor of translucent ocean, where, in
+a gracious and tempered light, beings of a compassion too intense for
+earth, each with a gesture that was not yet a touch, were charming all
+the bruises of the lost battle away. Surely this is true vision of
+things to come, and to such mercy we shall awaken. It cannot be that
+when the eyes reopen they shall see the forms of dark apparitors, or
+that the ears shall hear Æacus and Rhadamanthys speaking in dim halls
+their cold, irrevocable dooms. No, but there shall be a pause and
+respite upon the way from one to another life, and none may be conceived
+more grateful than this rest, as it were a sojourn beneath waters of
+Eunoë, where a flood of dear memories foreboding good shall absolve us
+from the mortal sin of fear.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Turning back over these pages, I am conscious that I have failed to give
+real experiences their proper life. Describing solitude I have been
+dull; I have fixed the rushing flames of emotion in poor flamboyant
+lines. I have written far more than any reader but yourself will have
+cared to follow; but now at any rate the confession is over, and in the
+future I shall work, and use my sight for a worthier end than
+introspection. It has been said that the tale of any life is
+interesting if sincerely told; and it may be that the most ordinary
+lives have the advantage, because it is the common experience which
+touches most hearts. For the greater part mine has been a common life,
+unglorified by hazards in the field, or bright fulfilment of ambition;
+it had been better for its peace if it might wholly have kept the
+comfortable, usual way.
+
+I sometimes wonder whether the printing of these pages will reveal to me
+any kinsmen in affliction, for such there must be going westward alone,
+and I wish that for a moment we might foregather as we pass, to compare
+the marvels of our isolation. Then perhaps I might be urged to higher
+effort, hearing stories more pitiful than mine, tales of silent courage
+under ban of excommunion to shame me from the very thought of despair.
+Poets have metaphorically given colours to souls; mine, I feel, is only
+grey, the common hue of shadows; but it was steeped in gloom by a
+veritable pain and evils really undergone. And as I reflect upon what I
+have written, and try to imagine it read by some brisk person utterly
+content with life, I can well understand that the whole thing would
+appear to him incredible, too preposterously strange for belief, a
+rigmarole of sick fancies beyond the power of hellebore. So be it: I
+expect small comprehension and no mercy, for indeed I have written
+caring little for such consequence, yielding to that human thirst for
+utterance which only confession can slake; as one eases pain by a moan
+though there are none to hear it. It is not altogether a grateful task.
+For hardly, and then only in a fortunate hour, to one whose years and
+feelings have been interwoven with his own, will even a healthy man tell
+the tale of his hidden emotion; and mine is the deeper reticence of a
+habit which has ever held closely to the recipe of fernseed. To entrust
+a confidence to one of unproven sympathy, is to risk a profitless
+embarrassment. It has been most truly said that both parties to such
+impulsive avowals, whenever they afterwards meet, must feel a constraint
+as of confederacy in misdemeanour.
+
+I have hope that though I came late to the steady labour of the
+vineyard, I may yet earn my wage and begin the new day with the rest.
+Like Joseph Poorgrass I can now almost regard my diffidence as an
+interesting study, and agree with the rustic man of calamities that
+destiny might have made things even worse. Certainly the pain grows less
+fierce; I can go more readily among my fellows for all but social ends.
+For those who live much apart learn at last to see men not as
+individuals but in groups: to them it is the type which counts, the
+_forma specifica per formam individualem translucens_, of which the
+scholastic jargon speaks. Those with whom I come in casual contact
+appear to me now in a vague, diffused light like the atmosphere of some
+other world. Dwelling upon none with the eyes of intimacy, and passing
+swiftly from this to that, I find each but the harmless variant of a
+species; if I lingered or came too near, doubtless old apprehensions
+would oppress me still. It is a disadvantage of this outlook that the
+fascination of detail is lost, and that I have less sense for the
+personal in life. But if I grow old I shall regain the interest in
+particular things and persons with which age is consoled amid many
+miseries; for while youth grows earnest over some riddle of high art or
+the occultation of Aldebaran, age is happily absorbed in the arrangement
+of a room or discussing the destinies of a single household.
+
+Meanwhile, though uncongenial to my kind as entering little into their
+pleasures, I like to be near them in their grief or happiness, standing
+unnoticed in the wind of their fortune's wheel. At least I am not soured
+or malevolent, and when there is dancing toward, I am in the crowd upon
+the margin of the green. I have abandoned social obligations because I
+am unfitted to perform them well, and society high and low exists by
+their cheerful fulfilment. But I no longer rail at social law or decline
+to see anything but evil in conventions devised by the wisdom and
+refinement of centuries. If I refuse invitations and leave calls unpaid,
+it is because I am socially bankrupt: were I solvent I should redeem all
+debts.
+
+I decline therefore to denounce Chesterfield and deify Thoreau: there
+was exaggeration in both men, and though my sympathies are rather with
+the recluse of Walden pond, it is quite probable that Chesterfield was
+the more useful of the two. I am a bad player, I have not the high
+spirits or the conversational skill which each should contribute to the
+social game. And in almost any sport the incompetent confer a benefit by
+standing out: at least, that is the opinion which I hear the average
+player express. If I lived in the backwoods where any guest is welcome,
+it might be my duty to act differently. But my ways are cast in places
+where there is no need for social press-gangs, and the highways and
+hedges are left unsearched. If therefore by abstention I gain a
+qualified peace for myself, and confer positive benefit on others, I may
+go my way without serious reproach.
+
+And I did wisely not to marry, for I should have clung too closely to my
+study for the happiness of any woman. I once saw an advertisement in
+the newspaper inserted by a discontented young wife whose husband was a
+recluse and would not take her out of evenings. She wanted to
+communicate with congenial people, and, like a desperate sailor
+marooned, was driven to wave her signal in the sight of the casual eye.
+This frank confession of abandonment made a profound impression upon me.
+I thought to myself, "Master recluse, you are a pilferer and have
+filched a life. I am yet more solitary in my estate, and if I followed
+your example, should be guilty of a greater wrong." There are, indeed,
+hours when I feel embittered at the thought that for one innocent defect
+a whole life should be amerced of joy; the finality of loss appals: all
+is so irrevocable; _le vase est imbibé, l'étoffe a pris son pli_.
+Avoided not without cause by those who were my natural associates, I
+grow impenetrable of access, and even in my own family unfamiliar. The
+resentment that welled up in the man who told the story of Henry
+Ryecroft obtains the mastery, and I feel one in spirit with that lonely
+analyst of disillusions. Sometimes a worse darkness gathers round, till
+I long for one of those intense and all-absorbing creeds which somehow
+seem to tend the brightest hearth-fires which earth knows: for
+philosophy, though it invented the void, never built a little Gidding.
+
+It is then that I feel like the suppliant of the old Babylonian prayer,
+"one whose kin are afar off, whose city is distant," and all that
+appears before my sight is one scroll of wrongs which this evil heritage
+has inflicted upon me. It has made my best years rich in misery; it has
+cut me off from marriage; it has compelled me, one hating vain
+complaint, to live querulously in the optative mood. Neither poverty nor
+sickness could chastise more heavily; for poverty is strong in numbers
+and sickness rich in sympathy, but diffidence reaps laughter and is
+alone. When such thoughts win dominion over the mind I could envy what
+sufferer you will his most awful punishment. For in his agony be sure
+there is movement and action; his limbs are torn, yet he is dragged
+onward: by his very writhing in the bonds he confesses his life. But I
+lie in some dead waste where nothing moves and all is mist without
+horizon, lost in an abhorred blankness of dismay to which no positive
+suffering may be likened. Thither comes no fierce provocation to quicken
+into Promethean scorn; life lies whelmed in blackness unlit by flashes
+of defiance or the cold splendour of disdain.
+
+Empedocles once described his dream of retribution for the last
+unutterable offence. For thrice ten thousand years the sinner roams
+estranged from bliss, taking all mortal shapes, wearing with tired feet
+all the sad ways of life. Æther sweeps him out to Ocean, Ocean casts him
+naked on the shores of Earth, Earth hurls him upward to the flames of
+Helios, and he, relentless, spurns the victim back to Æther, that the
+dread cycle may begin anew. But to be for ever driven in this majestic
+whirl of change, to receive the chastisement of all elements and survive
+unbroken for a new revolution of the wheel, this is but an assurance of
+the very pride of life, it is the charter of an invincible manhood. The
+doom which in truth befits the unutterable sin is rather the blank pain
+without accident or period, without point or salience to draw from
+stunned nature her last energies of resentment. It is well for me that
+this misery is short-lived, and that either by thinking on that ideal
+love I know the miracle of the twenty-ninth sonnet, or, struggling with
+instant effort out of the toils, try to see myself as I appear to
+others, one who should scorn to sit in thirst when there are wells yet
+for the seeking.
+
+It is a strange life to lead in this pleasureful world; and if when it
+is over I were condemned to live again, coming like Er the Armenian to
+that meadow where the lots are thrown down for each to choose his own, I
+am already decided what character I should elect to play. I should
+neither cast myself for a protagonist's part nor again for that of a
+dumb actor in those backgrounds I know too well; but just for a plain
+manly character, strong to face all fortunes and rich in troops of
+friends. There should be no more evasion or dreary wrestling of mind
+with body; but life should move to a restrained harmony, and no elusive
+wind should carry half the music away.
+
+As for what remains of this present dispensation, I shall know how to
+endure, trusting that the years may fade finely, like the figures in an
+old tapestry, and that the end may come to me as to the old gentleman in
+Hans Christian Andersen's story of the Old House. And I have this
+advantage over other men, that while they have the whole cornucopia to
+lose, I can but be deprived of the dregs in its pointed end. For in what
+can there be further punishment? On others, men of happy pasts, dismay
+may fall as the ways are darkened before them. But surely I shall be of
+good cheer as I come into the land of the fierce old robber Age; for,
+stripped long since by a more subtle and insatiate despoiler, I shall
+possess nothing of worth to draw his covetousness upon me. So many joys
+did my very youth renounce; so many pleasures the Harpies swept from my
+place at the spread board of life; such gags and fetters held me while
+others danced and sang, that I was the sad familiar of evil fortune
+before my companions were acquainted with her name. That leaden weight
+which brings others low, by a nice adjustment of the scales shall raise
+me for the first time to their equality. And then, as one experienced in
+bereavements, of themselves they may seek my company; and I, so long the
+useless and estranged, may become at the close their helpful counsellor.
+
+If only that might be; if only upon the verge of night I might redeem by
+usefulness my lost unserviceable day. Then this grey life, so long sole
+and intrinsical to itself, should glow at last with some reflection of
+the sunset; once more I should know young ardours imagined lost and
+devotions miraculously born again.
+
+You will still encounter me now and then, moving absently through the
+crowd, or wandering in some green place, as in the garden of the
+Luxembourg Vauvenargues used to meet the wounded of the great battle,
+keeping apart in the narrower walks, and leaving the broad central ways
+for lighter feet than theirs. He often longed to have speech with them;
+but always they turned away, with the proud self-sufficiency of the
+disillusioned. Perhaps if he had succeeded he would have found that to
+some of them life had its consolations not unlike mine, and that they
+could still regard it as something more than a friendly process of
+detachment. But it is not our habit to expand; we are ever held back by
+the occult pride which the same soldier-philosopher has assigned to one
+of his imaginary characters, "cette fierté tendre d'une âme timide, qui
+ne veut avouer ni sa défaite, ni ses espérances, ni la vanité de ses
+voeux."
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Apologia Diffidentis, by W. Compton Leith
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK APOLOGIA DIFFIDENTIS ***
+
+***** This file should be named 27795-8.txt or 27795-8.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/2/7/7/9/27795/
+
+Produced by Meredith Bach and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/27795-8.zip b/27795-8.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4bbfb75
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-8.zip
diff --git a/27795-h.zip b/27795-h.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d0f0683
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-h.zip
diff --git a/27795-h/27795-h.htm b/27795-h/27795-h.htm
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0c62f44
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-h/27795-h.htm
@@ -0,0 +1,5602 @@
+<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+    "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" />
+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Apologia Diffidentis, by W. Compton Leith.
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css">
+/*<![CDATA[  XML blockout */
+<!--
+body {
+    margin-left: 10%;
+    margin-right: 10%;
+}
+
+h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {
+    text-align: center;
+    clear: both;
+}
+
+p {
+    margin-top: .75em;
+    text-align: justify;
+    margin-bottom: .75em;
+}
+
+hr {
+    width: 15%;
+    margin-top: 3em;
+    margin-bottom: 3em;
+    margin-left: auto;
+    margin-right: auto;
+    clear: both;
+    color: #BDBDBD;
+}
+
+hr.hr2 {
+    width: 10%;
+    margin-top: 2.5em;
+    margin-bottom: 2.5em;
+    clear: both;
+    color: #BDBDBD;
+}
+
+.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */
+ /* visibility: hidden; */
+    position: absolute;
+    left: 95%;
+    font-size: smaller;
+    text-align: right;
+    color: #C0C0C0;
+}
+
+.center   {text-align: center;}
+
+.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps; text-align: center;}
+
+.image   {text-align: center;}
+
+.block {margin: auto; text-align: center; width: 30%; margin-top: 1.5em; margin-bottom: 1.5em;}
+
+.poem {
+    margin: 1em;
+    text-align: left;
+    font-size: 96%
+}
+
+.dropcap {
+    float: left;
+    font-size: 310%;
+    line-height: 77%;
+    padding-right: 2px;
+    padding-bottom: 1px;
+}
+
+.tnote {
+    border-style: double;
+    border-width: 6px;
+    padding: 1em;
+    background: #FFFFFF;
+    text-align: center;
+    margin-left: 9%;
+    margin-right: 9%;
+    font-size: 95%;
+    border-color: #000000;
+}
+
+.upper {text-transform: uppercase;}
+
+.minispace {margin-bottom: 1em;}
+
+.microspace {margin-bottom: .5em;}
+
+.nanospace {padding-bottom: .25em;}
+
+.border2 {
+    border-style: solid;
+    border-width: 2px;
+    background: #FFFFFF;
+    border-color: #000000;
+    margin-left: 16em;
+    margin-right: 15.5em;
+    padding: 1em;
+}
+
+.blockquote {margin-left: 3em; font-size: 95%; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;}
+
+ins {text-decoration: none;}
+// -->
+/* XML end  ]]>*/
+    </style>
+  </head>
+<body>
+
+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Apologia Diffidentis, by W. Compton Leith
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Apologia Diffidentis
+
+Author: W. Compton Leith
+
+Release Date: January 13, 2009 [EBook #27795]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK APOLOGIA DIFFIDENTIS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Meredith Bach and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<div class="minispace">&nbsp;</div>
+<div class="tnote">
+<h3>Transcriber's Note:</h3>
+
+This book contains a few words in Greek. English transliterations of these words can be viewed by <ins title="like this" style="border-bottom: thin dotted black">hovering</ins> the mouse pointer over them.
+</div>
+
+<div class="minispace">&nbsp;</div>
+<div class="minispace">&nbsp;</div>
+<div class="image"><img src="images/ititle.png" width="457" height="92" alt="Apologia Diffidentis" title="" /></div>
+
+<div class="microspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<div class="image"><img src="images/i_booklist.png" width="349" height="222" alt="BY THE SAME AUTHOR
+
+Sirenica" title="" /></div>
+
+<div class="minispace">&nbsp;</div>
+<div class="microspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/ititle2.jpg" width="328" height="587" alt="Title Page" title="" /></div>
+<div class="minispace">&nbsp;</div>
+<div class="minispace">&nbsp;</div>
+<div class="border2">
+<h1 style="color: #FF0000;">Apologia<br />
+Diffidentis</h1>
+
+<h3>By</h3>
+<h2><span style="color: #FF0000;">W.</span> <span style="color: #FF0000;">C</span>ompton <span style="color: #FF0000;">L</span>eith</h2>
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<h3><span style="color: #FF0000;">London:</span> John Lane, The<br />
+Bodley Head. <span style="color: #FF0000">New York:</span><br />
+John Lane Company<br />
+<small>MCMXVII</small></h3>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2 style="margin-bottom: 2.5em;"><i>Third Edition</i></h2>
+
+<h3><i>Printed in Great Britain<br />
+by Turnbull &amp; Spears, Edinburgh</i></h3>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<div class="image"><img src="images/i_dedication.png" width="450" height="121" alt="To One
+Whose Friendship is beyond Desert
+and above Requital" title="" /></div>
+
+
+<hr />
+<div class="minispace">&nbsp;</div>
+<div class="image"><img src="images/i001.png" width="399" height="83" alt="Apologia Diffidentis" title="" /></div>
+<div class="microspace">&nbsp;</div>
+<div class="blockquote center">"I am naturally bashful; nor hath conversation, age,
+or travel been able to effront or enharden me."</div>
+
+<div class="smcap"><span style="margin-left: 30em;">Sir Thomas Browne</span></div>
+<div class="microspace">&nbsp;</div>
+
+<p><span class="dropcap">I</span><span class="upper">n</span> the matter of avowals the diffident<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span>
+never speak if they can write. That
+is why my apology for a furtive existence
+is here set down in solitude instead of
+being told face to face. You have borne so
+many years with my unresponsive and incomprehensible
+ways that shame at last constrains
+me to this poor defence; for I must
+either justify myself in your sight, or go far
+away where even your kindness cannot reach
+me. The first alternative is hard, but the
+second too grievous for impaired powers of
+endurance; I must therefore find what expression
+I may, and tell you how my life has
+been beshrewed ever since, a boy of twelve,
+I first incurred the obloquy of being shy.
+The word slips easily from the pen though
+the lips refuse to frame it; for I think<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span>
+most men would rather plead guilty to a
+vice than to this weakness.</p>
+
+<p>A doom of reticence is upon all our shy
+confraternity, and we seldom make confidences
+even to each other. It is only at
+rarest intervals that the spell is lifted, by
+silent sympathy, by a smile, by a tear, by I
+know not what. At such times our souls
+are like those deep pools of the shore, only
+open to the sky at lowest tides of still
+summer days, only to be approached across
+long stretches of wet sand and slippery
+shelves of rock. In their depths are delicate
+fronded seaweeds and shells tinted with
+hues of sundawn; but to see them you must
+bend low over the surface, which no lightest
+breath must furrow, or the vision is gone.</p>
+
+<p>Few of the busy toilers of the world will
+leave the firm sands to see so little; but
+sometimes one weary of keen life will stray
+aside, and oftener a child will come splashing
+across the beach to peer down with
+artless curiosity and delight. Then the
+jealous ocean returns, and the still clear
+depths are confused once more with refluent
+waters; soon the waves are tossing above<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span>
+the quiet spot, and the child is gone home
+to sleep and forget. I cannot have you
+with me at these still hours of revelation;
+I must tell my tale as best I can with such
+success as fortune may bestow.</p>
+
+<p>I shall say nothing of the miseries which
+embittered the life of the diffident boy.
+But I cannot pass in silence the deeper
+trouble of earliest manhood, when my soul
+first awoke to the dread that though other
+clouds might drift westward and dissolve,
+one would impend over me for ever. It was
+at the university that this vague misgiving
+crept upon me like a chill mist, until the
+hopes and aspirations of youth were one by
+one extinguished, as to a sailor putting out
+to sea the comfortable harbour lights vanish
+in the wracks of a tempestuous winter
+morning. I turned my face away from the
+gracious young life amidst which I moved,
+like a man possessed of a dark secret to his
+undoing. My heart, yet eager for the joy
+of living and yearning for affection, was
+daily starved of its need as by a power of
+deliberate and feline cruelty; and with
+every expansive impulse instantly restrained<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span>
+by this dæmonic force, I was left at last
+unresponsive as a maltreated child, who
+flings his arms round no one, but shrinks
+back into his own world of solitary fancies.</p>
+
+<p>I think there is no misery so great as that
+of youth surrounded by all opportunities for
+wholesome fellowship, endowed with natural
+faculties for enjoyment, yet repressed and
+thwarted at every turn by invincible self-consciousness
+and mistrust: surely no lost
+opportunities of manhood leave such aching
+voids as these. In the spring-time of life
+to feel day by day the slow erosion of the
+power of joy is of all pains most poignant;
+out of it grow anxieties, premature despairs,
+incongruous with fresh cheeks and a mind
+not yet mature. This misery was mine for
+those four years which to most men are
+the happiest of a whole career, but to me
+at every retrospect seem so beset with
+gloomy shadows that could I live my life
+again, I would not traverse them once
+more for all the gold of Ophir.</p>
+
+<p>At first I writhed and strained in my
+bonds, and sometimes would make timid
+advances to the generous young hearts<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span>
+around me. But the tension always proved
+too sore; I never maintained the ground
+I had won, and with a perilous fatalism
+more and more readily accepted what I
+deemed inevitable failure. There were
+among them, I doubt it not now, Samaritans
+who would have tended my bruised limbs;
+but then they all seemed to be gliding over
+the black ice, too happy to stay and lift up
+the fallen. And bruised though I was, I
+still rose time and again and moved painfully
+among them, so that theirs was no
+culpable or merciless neglect.</p>
+
+<p>Yet the end for me was illimitable dreariness;
+and like Archie in <i>Weir of Hermiston</i>,
+I seemed abroad in a world from which
+every hope of intimacy was banished. And
+as with every month the hopelessness of
+resistance was made plainer and plainer,
+there came upon me the recklessness of the
+condemned man who jests or blasphemes to
+hide his ruth. Overwrought continually by
+forebodings of coming pain, unstrung by
+strange revulsions, I would pass from burning
+wrath to cold despair, a most petulant
+and undisciplined sufferer. Uniting in one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>
+person the physical exuberance of youth
+and the melancholy of disillusioned manhood,
+I was deprived of the balanced energy
+proper to either age, and kept up a braggart
+courage with the headiest wine of
+literature. I could not bear the bland
+homilies of the preachers, but ranged myself
+with the apostles of rebellion who blew
+imperious trumpet blasts before the walls of
+ordered life.</p>
+
+<p>Verily the violence of the blasts was
+sometimes such that the ramparts should
+have fallen down; and often in my exaltation
+I already saw them totter, as I strode
+along reciting the dithyrambs of men who
+like myself could find scarce a responsive
+heart-beat in all this throbbing world.
+Above all I gloried in the declamations of
+Queen Mab, which sanctioned by high
+poetic authority the waste of my affections
+and my moody defiance of life's most
+salutary law. With these upon my lips
+I roamed, an absurd pathetic figure, amid
+the haunts of the Scholar Gipsy, and the
+wayward upland breezes conspired with
+my truant moods. And while I sat by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span>
+my lamp late into the night, I turned
+the pages of pessimists and cynics, for no
+principles are dearer to a man than those
+which allow him to profess contempt for
+the benefits which he cannot enjoy.</p>
+
+<p>Yet by seeking amid such simples a balm
+for wounded pride, I did not really deceive
+myself, but lived as a sophist rather than a
+philosopher. And all the while I was
+digging graves for my better instincts, until
+my sexton's mood, confining me within
+churchyard walls, gave me over almost entirely
+to the company of mental bats and
+owls. The danger of it all was that though
+I was yet youthful, and should have been
+still pliant as a sapling, I was fostering the
+growth of those habits which, like rings in
+the grain, are the signature of unyielding
+years. Naturalists say that a bullfinch fed
+only on hempseed gradually loses his fair
+plumage and becomes black as a raven: so
+my soul, nourished on thoughts of rebellion,
+put off its bright and diverse enthusiasms and
+was clothed in the dark garment of despair.</p>
+
+<p>When the long-desired hour of release
+came, and I was free to turn my back upon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>
+the spires of my prison city, I had already
+plumbed an abyss of misery. The very
+thought of life in the conflict of the world
+was abhorrent; and if I had been of the
+Roman Church I should have become a
+Benedictine and sought a lettered and
+cloistered peace. I despaired of finding
+anywhere upon earth the profound quietude,
+the absolute detachment, when a chance
+occasion seemed to crown my desire, and
+blind to all warnings of disillusion, I suddenly
+set sail for what I then thought
+might be a permanent sojourn in the East.</p>
+
+<p>Within two months' time the whole
+environment of my life was changed, and
+I was established on a lonely plantation set
+high upon a range of hills whose slopes
+were clothed with primeval forests verging
+to a tropical sea. My home, a white-walled,
+red-roofed bungalow with a great
+columned verandah like a temple's peristyle,
+lay in the issue of an upper valley threaded
+by a clear stream, whence you may look
+far down over rolling plains to an horizon
+lost in the shimmering heat of noon. Immediately
+to the east rose the cone of a great<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>
+solitary hill, always outlined against the
+sky with a majestic isolation that lent it an
+almost personal existence, and at the birth of
+every day bearing the orb of the rising sun
+upon its wooded shoulder. Round about,
+in scattered villages of thatched and mud-walled
+huts, dwelled brown men of ancient
+pagan ways, men who neither knew progress
+nor set any price upon time.</p>
+
+<p>There I entered upon a wholly new
+existence as remote from all the social trials
+which beset shyness as if it were passed in
+some island of the uttermost sea. I had
+escaped from a harrying pursuit; I was
+free; and to the bliss of this recovered
+liberty I abandoned myself, without attempting
+to justify my flight to conscience
+or forming any scheme for future
+years. Like a deer which has eluded the
+hounds, I yearned only for rest and long
+oblivion of the chase; I wanted to live
+woodland days until, all the strain and panic
+of the past forgotten, I might rise refreshed
+and see a new way clear before me.</p>
+
+<p>And this first abandonment was a time
+of ecstasy. The long tranquil days were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span>
+crowned by nights of peace yet more
+desired. I lay beneath the verandah and
+watched the stars in their splendour, not
+the pin-points of cold light that pierce our
+misty western heavens, but bright orbs in
+innumerable companies hovering upon the
+tranced earth. Night after night I saw the
+incomparable vision; month after month
+the moon rose slowly over the high wall of
+the jungle, first a great globe imminent
+upon the trees, next soaring remote through
+the upper heavens, waning at last to a sphere
+of pale unquickening light. I would lie
+thus for hours motionless, with lulled mind,
+until the breeze forerunning the dawn, or
+the quavering wail of the jackal, recalled
+the startled thought to the prison bonds
+of self.</p>
+
+<p>With the gentle lapse of months all
+these impersonal influences took dominion
+over me and gave me a quiet happiness
+never known before. The nights brought
+the greater light; but the days too had
+their glories. I would climb the rugged
+sides of the mountain, and emerging into
+a colder world sit beneath an overhanging<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>
+rock and see the hot air quivering over
+leagues of plain; while in the nearer
+distance, far down beneath my feet, the
+rice-fields shone like emerald and the palm-fringed
+pools like shields of silver. Or I
+would stretch myself at early afternoon on
+the close-cropped grass on the jungle-edge,
+and watch the opposite sky take on an ever-deeper
+blue against the setting sun behind
+me. Often at such times I would hear
+a rushing in the highest branches, and
+turning very silently, see the outposts of
+a troop of monkeys peering down through
+the gleaming foliage. Then, if I moved,
+neither head nor limb, others would come,
+and yet others, leaping from branch to
+branch and plunging down from higher to
+lower levels like divers cleaving a deep
+green sea; until at last some slightest
+involuntary movement of mine would put
+the whole host to flight, and greybeards,
+young warriors, camp followers and mothers
+with their children on their backs would
+spring precipitate from tree to tree, screaming
+and gibbering like Homer's sapless
+dead. Then, when the stars rushed out<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>
+and the darkness came on apace, it was sweet
+to wander home along those paths so dear
+to primitive men in all countries, narrow
+paths and sinuous, smoothed by the footfalls
+of centuries, winding patiently round every
+obstacle and never breaking through after
+the brutal manner of civilization. The fire-flies
+gleamed in the brushwood on either
+hand, and from every side rose that all-pervading
+hum of busy insects through
+which the tropic forest is never still.</p>
+
+<p>Amid these surroundings, so peaceful and
+so new, my soul was stilled to that <ins title="galênê">&#947;&#945;&#955;&#8053;&#957;&#951;</ins>
+or ocean-calm which the old Greek philosopher
+found the highest good for man. And
+month by month the mere material side of
+life grew of less moment; the body fretted
+the spirit less, but often seemed a tissue of
+gossamer lightness through which it could
+pass at will, as the breeze through the gleaming
+spider-webs upon the bushes at dawn.
+There were times when the ideal of the
+mystic seemed well-nigh accomplished, when
+my body might almost have been abandoned
+by the soul for hours upon end. The
+words of Emerson seemed to be fulfilled:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>
+"By being assimilated to the original soul
+by whom and after whom all things subsist,
+the soul of man does then easily flow into
+all things and all things flow into it: they
+mix; and he is present and sympathetic
+with their structure and law."</p>
+
+<p>As I write now amid the roar of London
+traffic, I well believe that to men who
+have never bathed in eastern moonlight,
+the description will sound hyperbolical and
+false. But when I think of those old days,
+how serene they were, how apart, I let
+the words stand: I am not artist enough
+to give them a more plausible simplicity.
+All conditions that a recluse might crave
+seemed now to be fulfilled for my benefit.
+The virgin forests and great hills were a
+perpetual joy, but there was a tranquil
+pleasure in the plantation which man's
+labour had reclaimed from these. That
+was a meet place indeed for the meditation
+of a quiet hour, and no more grateful
+refuge can be conceived than such a shady
+grove at the height of noon. You must
+not fancy an expanse of dusty land lined
+with prim rows of plants in the formal style<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>
+of a nursery garden; but, spread over the
+lower slopes of the valleys, spacious woods
+of clean, grey-stemmed trees, with overarching
+branches thinned to cast a diaphanous
+shade over the sea of lustrous dark
+leaves below. The shrubs stood waist-high
+in serried, commingling ranks, their dark
+burnished leaves gleaming here and there
+in the sifted rays that found their way
+down through the vaults of foliage; the
+groves of Daphne had no more perfect
+sheen.</p>
+
+<p>I learned to feel for this gracious place
+a love only second to that of the wilder
+jungle; for nature thus tamed to work side
+by side with man loses indeed her austerer
+charm, but not her calm and dignity:
+these she brings with her always to be a
+glory to the humblest associate of her
+labour. Often as I pruned a tree, or
+stripped its stem of suckers, I felt the
+soothing, quickening influence of this
+partnership, and my thoughts turned to
+others who had known a like satisfaction
+and relief; to Obermann forgetting his
+melancholy in the toil of the vintage,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>
+plucking the ripe clusters and wheeling
+them away as if he had never known the
+malady of thought; or to Edward Fitzgerald
+out with the dawn among his roses
+at Little Grange.</p>
+
+<p>Amid these high dreams and simple occupations,
+time seemed to glide away like a
+brimming stream, and the only events that
+marked the passing of the years were wayfarings
+through the country-side, sojournings
+in strange, slumbrous native towns,
+expeditions of wider range to old white
+ports of Malabar still dreaming of the forgotten
+heroes whose story Camoens sang.
+After many such journeys the genius of
+this oriental land seemed to travel with us,
+so familiar did every aspect of this simple
+Indian life become. Our equipment was
+of set purpose the patriarchal gear of native
+fashion; narrow carts with great lumbering
+wheels were covered by matting arched
+upon bent saplings, and had within a depth
+of clean rice-straw on which at night mattresses
+were spread. Beneath each yoke
+went a pair of milk-white oxen with large
+mild eyes and pendulous dewlaps, great<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>
+beasts of a fine Homeric dignity and worthy
+of Nausicaa's wain. They swung along
+with a leisurely rolling gait; and if their
+silent feet moved too slowly, the sleepy
+brown-skinned driver, crouching on the
+pole between them, would shame them
+into speed by scornful words about their
+ancestry, more prompt than blows in their
+effect on beasts of ancient and sacred lineage.</p>
+
+<p>We travelled at night or in the freshness
+of early morning, regardless of the hours,
+unfretted by the tyrannous remembrances
+of appointed times. Milestones passed
+slowly, like things drifting, which ask no
+attention, and hardly perceived in the
+moment of their disappearance, serve only to
+enrich and replenish the mind's voluptuous
+repose. It was a joy to lie drowsily back
+upon the straw, awaiting sleep and looking
+out upon the stars through the open back
+of the cart, while the fire-flies darted across
+the feathery clusters of bamboo, and the
+cradling sound of wheels and footfalls called
+slumber up out of the darkness. And it
+was equal delight to spring from the cart at
+first flush of dawn, and see some far blue<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span>
+hill in the east lined like a cloud with
+broadening gold, until the resistless sun rose
+a full orb above it, flooding the grey plains
+and making the leaves of the banyans gleam
+with the lustre of old bronze. But though
+the sun was come, we would often press on
+for yet three hours, through belts of squirrel-haunted
+wood, beside great sheets of water
+with wild-duck floating far amidst, and borders
+starred with yellow nenuphars, across
+groves of mango and plantain trees into
+landscapes of tiny terraced plots, where the
+vivid green rice-blades stood thick in the
+well-soaked earth, and bowed brown figures
+diverted to their roots the thread-like rivulet
+from the great brown tank above.</p>
+
+<p>Here would be a wayside shrine, a simple
+stuccoed portico with columns streaked in
+red, enclosing the sacred emblems with their
+offerings of golden marigold, and bearing
+upon each corner, carved in dark grey stone,
+Siva's recumbent bull. Here millet fields,
+with hedges of blue aloe or euphorbias like
+seven-branched candlesticks, announced a
+place of habitation; soon the village itself
+appeared, a long irregular line of white-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>walled
+houses roofed with thatch or tile,
+and here and there greater dwellings with
+carved balconies and barred verandahs, behind
+which impassive white-robed figures
+sat and seemed to ponder upon life. On
+the right, perhaps, would be a shop all
+open to the road, where, cross-legged upon
+a kind of daïs, the merchant sat among his
+piled wares, unenterprising and unsolicitous,
+serenely confident in the balance-sheet of
+fate. On the left, in a shady corner, a
+barber would be bending over a half-shaven
+skull. Everywhere children of every
+shade from yellow to deep umber would be
+playing solemnly about the ways, turning
+upon the passing stranger their grave, unfathomable
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond the village there would be a rest-house
+maintained for the use of wayfaring
+white men, and here we would repose through
+the heat of the day, reclining with a book
+in rooms shaded with shutters, or with fine
+mats drenched from hour to hour with
+cooling sprays of water. Then with the
+sun's decline we would set out once more,
+meeting a file of blue-robed women erect as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>
+caryatides as they came up from the well, each
+bearing upon her back-thrown head a water-jar
+of earthen or brazen ware, staying her
+burden with a shapely brown arm circled
+with bangles of glass and silver. In the
+short hours before the darkness, we would
+encounter all the types of men which go
+to make up Indian country life&mdash;the red-slippered
+banker jogging on his pony beneath
+a white umbrella, the vendor of palm-wine
+urging a donkey almost lost beneath the
+swollen skins, barefooted ryots with silent
+feet and strident tongues, crowds of boys
+and children driving buffaloes and cows, all
+coming homeward from their labour with
+the evening.</p>
+
+<p>And when these had gone by, and we
+rolled on through the scented air of the
+silent open country, we would come perhaps
+in the gathering darkness to a great
+river lapping and murmuring through the
+blackened rocks above the ford, and shining
+like a glorious path in the light of the rising
+moon. Silently, high above the banks,
+there would flit through the still air bands
+of flying foxes awakened for their nightly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>
+raid upon the plantain groves; and in the
+shadows of the further bank there would
+gleam a sudden light, or the echoes of a
+hailing voice would rise and then die away.
+Steeped in the poetry of all these things
+we would cross and emerge upon the
+opposite slope to begin the pilgrimage of
+the night anew. So to live tranquil days
+and unfretful, moving in quiet through a
+still land rich in old tradition&mdash;this was an
+experience of peace which no dreams of
+imagination could surpass, a freshness of joy
+penetrative as the fragrance of unplucked
+wayside flowers.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes we would set out on longer
+journeys by land and sea, crossing the
+wooded ghats and descending to some old
+port of historic name, Cochin or Mangalore
+or Calicut, white places of old memory,
+sleeping by the blue waves as if no Vasco
+de Gama had ever come sailing up out of
+the West to disturb their enchanted slumber.
+The approach to these dreamy shores was
+dark and tumultuous, as if nature had
+set an initiation of contrasting toil before
+the enjoyment of that light and peace. It<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>
+followed the bed of a mountain stream, which
+began in a mere pleat of the hills, tumbling
+often in white cascades, and enduring
+no boat upon its waters until half its course
+was run. But here it challenged man to
+essay a fall; for where it burst its way
+over rocky slopes were channels jeopardous
+and hardly navigable, sequences of foaming
+rapids, races of wild water swirling round
+opposing boulders, and careering indignant
+of restraint between long walls of beetling
+rock. Here when the sun had gone down
+we would embark with a crew of lithe brown
+men in a boat hewn from a single tree,
+seamless and stoutly fashioned to be the
+unharmed plaything of such rocks and
+boisterous waters as these. In these rapids
+the river waked to consciousness of mighty
+life, tossing our little craft through a riot of
+dancing waves, whirling it round the base of
+perpendicular rocks set like adamant in the
+hissing waters, sweeping it helpless as a petal
+down some glassy plane stilled, as it were,
+into a concentrated wrath of movement.
+The men sprang from side to side, from bow
+to stern, staving the craft with a miraculous<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>
+deftness from a projecting boulder, forcing
+her into a new course, steadying her as she
+reeled in the shock and strain of the conflict,
+while their long poles bent continually like
+willow wands against her battered sides.
+The steersman stood silent, except when he
+shouted above all the din some resonant,
+eruptive word of command; the men responded
+by breathless invocations to their
+gods, relaxing no tense sinew until the pent
+waters rushed out into some broad pool
+where the eased stream went brimming
+silently, gathering new strength in the
+darkness of its central deeps.</p>
+
+<p>At such places the moon would perhaps be
+obscured by passing clouds, and we would
+land upon an eyot until she shone once more
+in a clear heaven. Stretched at length upon
+the fine white sand waiting for her return,
+we could hear the boom of waters in the
+distance calling us on to a renewal of the
+conflict. These periods of great stillness,
+interposed between tumults past and impending,
+had their own refinement of
+pleasure as far above the joys of fenced
+and covenanted ease as the bivouac of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>
+hard campaign surpasses slumber in the fine
+linen of a captured city: they brought
+the wandering mind into communion with
+elemental forces, and seemed to hold it
+expectant of supernatural events. In that
+interlunar twilight there reigned a solemn
+sense of wonder evoked here eternally, one
+felt, from the ancient time, with the rustling
+of stirred foliage and the voice of those far
+waters for its music.</p>
+
+<p>The lulled reason yielded place to reverie,
+and the whole rapt being abandoned itself
+like an Orphic worshipper to the guidance of
+an unseen mysteriarch. This acquiescence
+in the swift succession of calm to fury and
+stress, resembled the quiet which may be
+conceived to follow sudden death; the
+heightened sense of vicissitude in things
+summoned up and sustained a solemn mood.
+All the while that we lay charmed and half
+oppressed in this atmosphere as of an under-world,
+the clouds were drawing forward on
+their course; and as their last fringe trailed
+slowly by and the moon was revealed once
+more, the spell was broken in an instant
+by human voices calling us to re-embark.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>
+Again we glided to the verge of tumultuous
+falls, again we were flung through foaming
+narrows and labyrinthine passages of torn
+rocks, until, the last promontory turned
+with arrowy swiftness, we shot through a
+postern of the granite barrier and bounded
+far into still water fringed with trees of
+profoundest shadow. We put in to shore,
+for this stage of our journey was over; the
+dawn was near; the carts stood waiting
+on the road. But the influence of the
+wonderful night, clinging about us, would
+keep us long silent, as if awed by the passing
+of ancient Vedic gods.</p>
+
+<p>I will not describe the later stages of these
+journeys: the coasting voyages in restful
+ships that seemed built to sail Mæander;
+the touchings at old wharfless ports; the
+visits to lone temples where Herodotus
+would have loved to linger; the rambles on
+the slopes of Adam's Peak; the meditations
+amid the ruins of Anaradhapura and
+Pollanarrua, ancient homes of kings, now
+stripped of every glory but that of these
+sonorous names&mdash;such are the records of
+every traveller, and are chronicled to satiety<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>
+by a hundred hasty pens. A month of
+wandering within the fringe of civilization
+would be closed by a last week of patriarchal
+travel, bringing us back to our remote valley
+just as the clouds of the coming monsoon
+were ranging in denser ranks along the
+evening sky like the tents of a beleaguering
+army. Hardly had we time to settle down
+for the wet season, see to the stacking of
+fire-logs, and be sure that every tile on the
+roof was firm in its appointed place, when
+the embattled host seemed to break up from
+its last camp, and advance upon us along
+the whole line that the eye perceived.</p>
+
+<p>One year I was witness of the first onset,
+which came in the late afternoon&mdash;an
+immediate shock of massed clouds without
+throwing forward of skirmishers or any prelude
+of the vanguard. Our home looked
+down upon a gentle incline of open grassy
+land to a broad belt of jungle in the middle
+distance; here the undergrowth and small
+trees had been newly cleared away, opening
+out a dim far view across an uncumbered
+leaf-strewn floor into the backward gloom
+of the forest. I sat with my eyes fixed upon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>
+the trees, drawing the rain on with the
+whole strength of desire to the parched
+country lying there faint with the exhaustion
+of three months of drought. While
+I watched, the deep line of cloud, at first
+distinct from the forest-top along which it
+came rolling, insensibly merged with the
+foliage, until every contour was lost in a
+common gloom, only the great bare stems
+below standing pale against the gathering
+darkness. There was an intense stillness
+everywhere like the silence of expectation
+which falls upon an awestruck crowd; the
+very insects had ceased their usual song.
+And now the ear caught a distant sound,
+vague and deep, coming up out of the mid
+darkness, and growing to a mighty volume
+as a sudden wind swept out from the
+sounding foliage into the open land and
+searched every cranny of the house as it
+passed. Then, as if drawn by the wind,
+there came into view among the nearest
+tree-stems a moving grey line advancing
+with a long roar until it hid the whole
+forest from sight: it was the wave of battle
+about to break upon us. It came on like<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span>
+a wall, enormous, irresistible; one instant,
+and it had devoured the intervening space;
+another, and we were lost in the deluge,
+and the great rain drops were spilled
+upon the roof with the noise of continuous
+thunder. As the deep sound reverberated
+through the roof above me, I went in exulting
+to a hearth piled with blazing logs,
+glad in the prospect of renewing for many
+weeks old and quiet habitudes of indoor
+life, rich with solace of books and tranquil
+meditation.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>I have dwelt upon the outward aspects of
+my life in exile, because the sojourn of these
+years amid the hills and forests taught a
+natural leechcraft which was to stand me in
+good stead in coming years, and may stand
+in equal stead other souls desolate as mine.
+Like the Nile brimming over the fields, a
+flood of joy from nature overlaid my parched
+being, enriching it with a fertile loam, and
+shielding it from the irritations of the world.
+I lay fallow beneath the still, sunlit waters,
+unharrowed by teasing points of doubt, and
+porous to the influence of an all-encom<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span>passing
+peace. Exile had opened to me a
+new heaven and a new earth, whose freshness
+and calm charmed thought away from all
+vain questionings; the fascination of outward
+things had for a while cooled the
+useless ardour of introspection. But it was
+inevitable that the bland ease of such a
+contemplative life should bring no enduring
+satisfaction to the mind; it was not an end
+in itself, but a mere means to serenity, a
+breathing-space useful to the recovery of
+a long-lost fortitude. The time was now
+come when the hunted deer, refreshed in
+the quiet of his inaccessible glen, was to
+awake to new thought of the herd, and of
+the duties of a common life; when the
+peace of successful flight was to appear in
+its true light as a momentary release, and
+no longer as the ultimate goal imagined in
+the anguish of pursuit.</p>
+
+<p>It was during this last monsoon that
+doubts began to stir within, interrupting
+my studies of the systems of Hindu philosophy
+and my porings over sacred books.
+The vague insistence of these misgivings
+made me surely aware that even in this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span>
+eastern paradise all was not well; but at
+first I refused to listen, and plunged deep
+into the maze of the Vedanta to escape the
+importunate voice. Yet anxiety came up
+around me like a heavy atmosphere; an
+indescribable sense of disillusion, clinging as
+a damp mist, brought its mildew to the soul,
+until my new heaven was overcast and my
+new earth dispeopled of all pleasures. Then
+one day the fever struck me down, and of a
+sudden my mind became an arena in which
+memories of earlier life chased one another
+unceasingly in the round of a delirious dance.
+Trivial events impressed themselves on consciousness
+with strange precision; objects
+long forgotten rose before me outlined in fire&mdash;one,
+a pane of stained glass in Fairford
+Church, with a lost soul peering in anguish
+through the red bars of hell. Each and
+every apparition was of the old life; all were
+emissaries from the forsaken West summoning
+me back to my renounced allegiance.
+When the fever left me, returning reason
+slowly brought order amid the welter of
+confused ideas, as the ants sorted the grain
+for distracted Psyche, and for the first time<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>
+I considered in the detachment of reminiscence
+the nature of my action in leaving
+England. I sifted the evidence at length as
+I lay under the verandah slowly recovering
+strength; and when at last judgment was
+delivered, it took the necessary form of condemnation.</p>
+
+<p>I saw now that unless a man is prepared
+to discard every western usage, to
+slough off his inherited cast of thought,
+to renounce his faith, wholly and finally
+to abandon his country and his father's
+house, his flight is but the blind expedient
+of cowardice or pride. Here and there may
+be born one who can so cut himself off
+from the parent stem as to endure a fruitful
+grafting upon an oriental stock, but I knew
+that I at least was none such. I was no
+more prepared for so uncompromising a
+renunciation than any other weakling who
+seeks prestige by parade of exotic wisdom,
+and deems himself a seer if he can but
+name the Triad, or tell the avatars of Vishnu,
+I had not the credulity which may justify
+the honest renegade, and the western blood
+still ran too warmly in my veins. I felt<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span>
+that were I to stay in the East for fifty years,
+I should never reach the supreme heights of
+metaphysical abstraction whence men really
+appear as specks and life as a play; therefore
+to remain was to avow myself a runaway
+and to live henceforth despicable in my own
+eyes. For over the unfathomable deep of
+oriental custom the torrent of our civilization
+flows unblending, as in the Druid's
+legend the twin streams of Dee flow clear
+through Bala lake, and never mingle with
+its waters. Not for our use is that intricate
+mind which in logic needs more than two
+premises to a conclusion, and in art is intolerant
+of all void space, entangling its
+figures in labyrinths of ornament which
+Maya herself might have devised to distract
+the sight from truth.</p>
+
+<p>The Hindu has the true dignity of contemplation,
+and superbly removes himself
+from the sordid greeds of life. But in
+imagining and reviling an abstraction called
+Matter, he abides in the errors of the first
+Greek sages, and mines so far beneath the
+trodden earth that when he looks up into
+middle day he sees only the stars above him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>
+Could I have shared the eremite's belief
+that his prayers help not merely his own
+solitary soul but all souls travailing through
+all the world, I might yet have remained
+where I was, an alien living indifferent to
+the common rule, like a monk of some
+shunned exotic order. But with convictions
+like mine, to do so would have brought the
+drear sense of derogation. All the miseries
+of the past were as nothing to that; there
+was but one manly course&mdash;to return and
+gird my loins for a new struggle with western
+life. Within a month from the time when
+this course was seen to be a duty, I was
+standing on the deck of a homeward-bound
+steamer, watching the harbour lights recede
+into the distance.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>Back once more in England, I threw
+aside the clinging robe of meditation, and
+falling upon work ravenously, indulged what
+genius of energy was still alive within
+me. I made haste to adore all that I had
+so lately burned, making life objective,
+revering personal ideals, and in the ordinance
+of material things finding the truest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span>
+satisfaction of all endeavour. I saw in
+civilization the world's sole hope; its brisk
+life and abounding force took sudden hold
+of a fancy enervated by dreams. Again I
+found a new heaven and a new earth,
+though earth was now no more than man's
+dinted anvil, and heaven his reservoir of
+useful light. I lived for action and movement;
+I mingled eagerly with my fellows,
+and cursed the folly which had driven me
+to waste three years in an intellectual swoon.
+Now the day was not long enough for work,
+Lebanon was not sufficient to burn. I saw
+the western man with race-dust on his
+cheeks, or throned in the power-houses of
+the world, moving upon iron platforms and
+straight ladders in the mid throb and tumult
+of encompassing engines. One false step,
+and he must fall a crushed and mutilated
+thing. Yet unconcerned as one strolling
+at large, he controlled the great wheels
+and plunging pistons, and brought them
+to a standstill with a touch of his finger.
+The confidence and strenuous ease of such
+life compelled me to marvel and admire,
+and I who had so lately lain at the feet of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>
+eastern sages, set up this mechanician as
+my god. If I looked back at all to the
+land of dreams, the placid figure beneath
+the Tree of Enlightenment took on the
+aspect of a fool's idol, ignobly self-manacled,
+pitiful and irksome in remembrance.</p>
+
+<p>But if once more I dreamed of finality
+in change I deceived myself, forgetting
+that God Himself cannot unmake the past
+or undo what is done. A year had hardly
+gone by in this new apprenticeship to life,
+when at moments of weariness or overstrain
+sharp doubts shot through me and
+were gone again, like twinges of sudden
+pain recalling old disease to one who
+has lulled himself with dreams of cure.
+The feeling of fellowship with men grew
+weaker, and as it waned I began to shrink
+once more from my kind. I still believed
+myself happy, but happiness seemed to
+need constant affirmation, as though it
+could make no way in my favour without
+display of token or credential to confirm its
+truth. There were pauses in the clatter
+and jangle of life; the revolutions of the
+great wheels sometimes slowed into silence;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>
+and as these interludes grew more frequent,
+I caught myself repeating that I really was
+content. The faint assurance given, I flung
+myself with devouring industry upon my
+allotted task, trying to stifle the forebodings
+which prophesied against my peace.</p>
+
+<p>In one such pause my old self appeared
+before me again, like the face of an ancient
+enemy looking in from the darkness;
+stealthy footfalls which of late I had so
+often seemed to hear were now referred
+to their true cause as we saw each other
+eye to eye. The old Adam had awakened
+and was come for his inheritance; and the
+vision of him there across the pane gazing
+in upon his own, seemed to arraign me
+for disowning a brother and denying his
+indefeasible right. I recognized that with
+this familiar form cold reason had returned
+to oust the hopes and emotions which had
+usurped her office. My rush for freedom
+had ended, as such sallies often do, in exhaustion,
+capture and despair; upon the
+thrill and thunder of the charge followed
+the silence of the dungeon and the anguish
+of stiffening wounds. The truth, so simply<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>
+written that a child might have spelled it,
+lay clear before me: I had left reformation
+till too late. I was too old to change.</p>
+
+<p>Even a few years before, I might have
+dashed out, like Marmion, from the prison-fortress;
+but now the opportunity was past
+and the portcullis was down. My character
+with all its faults was formed within me;
+and the very years which I had passed in the
+wilderness, instead of averting the danger,
+had set the final seal upon my fate, for
+when a man has reached a certain point in
+life he is intractable to the reforming hand.
+But though at last I knew myself beaten,
+and helpless in the hands of an implacable
+power, I fluttered like a wounded bird and
+sought wildly for a loophole of escape. I
+could no longer hope to stand alone against
+destiny; that conceit was gone: could I
+find a comrade to help me through the
+press and lift me when I fell? But here
+the invincible pride of shyness barred the
+way, forbidding alike any confession of
+weakness or any appeal to man's compassion.
+I could not bring myself to say: I am unable
+to rule my life, do you undertake it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>
+for me. Was marriage a conceivable path
+of redemption? I had never envisaged it
+before, but now, in my desperation, I
+dreamed it for a moment a possible issue.
+I even fixed upon the person who should
+thus save me from myself, and beguiled
+many lonely hours by picturing her charms
+and enumerating her noble qualities.</p>
+
+<p>She lived in a country house where I
+had been several times a guest, and she
+had one of those faces which, in Gray's
+beautiful expression, speak the language of
+all nations. Her features had that sunny
+charm which thaws mistrust; she was
+dowered with all graces and sweet qualities;
+and you could no more have doubted the
+immanent nobility of her nature than you
+could have dreamed a stain in the texture
+of a white petal. And with all her gentleness
+there was present I know not what
+sign and promise of strength, waking in
+those who saw her an intuitive trust in
+loyalty of uttermost proof. She would
+have flamed indignant against evil, but
+only evil could have moved her from that
+equal poise of soul which made her entrance<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span>
+into a room the prelude to higher thoughts
+and finer feelings. She was naturally kind
+without consciousness of a mission, neither
+seeking to enslave nor enfranchise, but by
+a silent outflowing of goodness ennobling
+whatever company she was in. Nor was
+her tongue the prattling servant of her
+beauty, but a guide of cheerful converse;
+for just as she charmed without device
+or scheme of fascination, so she possessed
+the art of speaking well without seeming
+to have ever studied it. In the chase after
+just and felicitous ideas, she could lead or
+follow over the most varied fields with the
+intuition of the huntress born. With all
+these excellences, her wit, her sincerity, her
+ardour for all things bright and true, she
+had no conceit of herself but kept her
+father's house in gladness and loved the
+country-side.</p>
+
+<p>To her, in these days of imminent dismay,
+my thoughts flew out as to a fair protecting
+saint; until the inspiration of her visionary
+presence wrought in my fancy with such a
+dramaturgic power, that I seemed to walk
+daily with her, and to know all those delicate<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>
+and sweet propinquities by which liking
+passes into affection and affection is glorified
+into love. So far did these happy day-dreams
+carry me, that they brought me to
+the extreme of imaginary bliss, and poured
+out for me the wine of untempered joy
+which thrills the hearts of lovers on the
+verge of their betrothal. The dreams that
+followed that magic draught denied me
+no convincing touch of circumstance, and
+projected upon a credible and familiar
+scene the bright possibilities to which fate
+denied a real existence. The scene was
+always the same, and the words and movements
+which entranced me followed each
+other with almost religious exactitude of
+detail which the adult demands of his
+day-dreams and the child of the fairy-tale
+he loves.</p>
+
+<p>It was always a June afternoon when we
+went out together, into the meadows near
+her home; she moving with fluent grace
+as befitted a daughter of the woods, her
+eyes indrawing joy from all nature, her
+hair reflecting rich gold of the sunlight, her
+whole face lit with the pleasure of a bright<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>
+hour; I a mere satellite attendant upon
+its central star. We strolled through the
+four home-meadows, crossed a high-banked
+lane and a dingle with a brook running
+down it, and then from an open common
+flooded with sunlight passed into a wood of
+tallest beeches. In that cool, shadowy place
+the sun, searching a way through crannies
+in the upper verdure, chequered with
+patches of silver light the even mast-strewn
+floor. The multitude of smooth grey stems
+rose aligned like cathedral columns; and the
+grateful dimness of the wood, succeeding the
+glare of day, wakened a sense of purposed
+protection and quietude pervading all things,
+which soothed the mind with the illusion
+that this was a sacred spot appointed for an
+offering of souls. Near one of those isles
+of sunlight we lingered; and as she looked
+up to the source of light, the movement
+brought her face near the slanting shaft of
+rays, until there was set round it an aureole
+of dancing beams. It seemed to me at this
+part of my dream that there came to both
+of us some gracious influence, for as her
+eyes met mine they dropped again, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>
+were fixed for a moment upon the wild
+flowers she carried. Then my heart began
+to beat and my whole being to grow greater:
+impassioned words, to that hour unconceived,
+came rushing to my lips; the fire
+and glory of a new manhood were kindling
+in me to the transformation of my nature&mdash;when,
+in the very moment of utterance,
+a sheer barrier of doom descended between
+me and my joy; the fire was quenched,
+and my soul was poured out within me.</p>
+
+<p>To this fatal point my fancy always
+brought me and no further, that coming
+thus to the threshold of the house of joy
+and hearing the bars shoot into their sockets
+I might thoroughly know my ineffectual self
+and leave untouched the forbidden latch.
+So far I came in my dream times without
+number; and always on the verge of joy
+there came that doom, and the shooting of
+those adamantine bolts.</p>
+
+<p>Yet all the while I wove it, I knew that
+this texture of dreams must soon be drawn
+aside, and like the curtain in the tragedy
+reveal at last the horror concealed within.
+Such brooding was but the deception of a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>
+reluctant spirit dallying and delaying with
+any trifle by the way to put off the arrival
+at the hill of evil prospect. At last I
+learned the lesson of this abrupt ending to
+the dream at the point of full disillusion;
+it forced itself upon me with the power of
+an oracular utterance warning me to cease
+my palterings with fate. My reason now
+rebuked me like a stern judge, dissecting all
+false pleas and laying bare their weakness.
+What right had I, now knowing myself
+incurable, even to dream of easing my own
+pain by darkening and despoiling a second
+life? The love of solitude was now more
+to me than even the love of a wife; it
+would surely come between us like a strange
+woman, and fill a pure heart with bitterness.
+No smiling hopes of a possible redemption
+could annul the immutable decree, and if
+I disobeyed the warning, guilt as well as
+misery would be mine; for he is pitiful
+indeed who only weds that his wife may
+suck the poison from his wounds. If I
+married I should stand for ever condemned
+of an unutterable meanness. So I dispelled
+my dreams and looked reality in the face.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It was a dismal prospect that lay before
+me. Until then the future had held its
+possible secrets, its imaginable revelations
+of change, which, like the luminous suggestions
+in dark clouds, allured with a promise
+of a brief and penetrable gloom. In my
+darkest hours I had lulled fear by the
+thought of a haply interposing Providence,
+and drifted on from day to aimless day
+nursing the hope of some miraculous release
+upon the very steps of the scaffold. But
+now I was twice fallen; and as a man
+abandoned by the last illusion of deliverance
+calls ruin to him, and in the new leisure
+of despair calmly scans the features at which
+but now he dared not glance, so I saw as in
+a hard grey light the true outlines of my
+destiny. The wreathing mist, the profound
+soft shadows, the clouds with their promise
+of mutability, were now all gone, leaving
+the bare framework of a world arid and
+severe as a lunar landscape.</p>
+
+<p>I seemed to be sitting in the dust, as
+in inmost Asia a sick man may crouch
+abandoned, while the caravan in which all
+his earthly hopes are centred goes inex<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>orably
+upon its way. The blue sky flushes
+to deep purple before him; night falls;
+all colour is swallowed up in darkness, until
+the jingling camel-bells receding up the
+pass cross the dividing ridge, and for him
+the last silence is begun. Such then was
+the end of youthful ambition: for food a
+mouthful of ashes instead of the very
+marrow of joy; for home not the free
+ocean, but a stagnant pool ringed with
+weeping willows, a log's fit floating-place.
+Here to float, marking the weed creep
+onward until all from bank to bank was
+overfilmed, and there remained no clear
+water of space for reflection of a single
+star: to float, and feel the sodden fibres of
+life loosening in slow decay&mdash;this was to be
+the last state of the seedling which had
+sprung up on the mountain slopes with
+promise of mighty stem and overarching
+branches full of sap like the cedars of the
+Lord.</p>
+
+<p>My life henceforth was to be ringed
+round and overhung with so heavy an air
+that joy and fancy should never fly in it,
+but fall dead as the birds above Avernus<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>
+according to the ancient story. I seemed
+to see nothing upon the path of the future
+but the stern form of Renunciation drawing
+between me and the living world the
+impassable circle of death in life, the <i>ultima
+linea rerum</i>. It was the last decree, the irrevocable
+sentence, the absolute end: and
+I had not yet reached half the Psalmist's
+span; I had not yet forgotten the lost
+summer mornings when the breeze scented
+with lilac came blowing through the casement,
+bearing with it the sound of glad
+voices welcoming the day.</p>
+
+<p>Philosophers are prone to gird at the
+animal in man, accusing it of dragging the
+soul down to the mire in which it wallows.
+They forget that by its brutal insistence
+upon physical needs it often preserves from
+madness, and timely arrests him who goes
+like a sleep-walker upon the verge of the
+abyss. Weariness and hunger are like brakes
+upon the car; they stop the dire momentum
+of grief, and insure that if misery will again
+drive us furiously, she must lash winded
+steeds anew. But what force should stay a
+disembodied sorrow, which unbreathed by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span>
+period or alternation of despair, should be
+rapt onward in the whirlwind and the hurricane,
+gathering eternally a fresh impetus of
+woe? Let us rail at the body for its weakness
+if we will, but prize it also for its restraint
+of the distracted mind. In the worst hour
+of my dejection it was the body which
+called the lost reason home. I became
+hungry and ate, hardly knowing what I
+did; I slept exhaustion away; and after
+many hours awoke with clearer eyes, grateful
+to the weak flesh, and ready in its company
+to face life once more, a defeated but not
+a desperate man. I was glad to be thus reminded
+that the body could play this helpful
+part, and my gratitude for its timely rescue
+taught me in after days to endure its
+tyranny with a better grace. In the interlude
+between despair and new effort, I
+once more turned a dispassionate gaze
+upon myself, as upon some abandoned
+slave of a drug; and maintaining an attitude
+of half-amused detachment, sought
+by a diagnosis of my case to establish the
+real causes of my failure to lead a normal
+life.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>At the outset I would make it clear that
+for me the only shyness that counts, is
+that which is so deeply ingrained, as to
+have outlasted youth. It may, indeed, be
+physically related to that transient bashfulness
+which haunts so many of us in our
+younger days only to vanish at maturity,
+swift as the belated ghost at cockcrow.
+But unlike this common accident of growth,
+it is no surface-defect, but an inward stain
+which dyes the very fibres of the being.
+It may, indeed, be somewhat bleached and
+diminished by a timely and skilful treatment,
+but is become too much a part of
+life to be ever wholly washed away. And
+the unhappy step-children of nature whose
+inheritance it is, seldom find a deliverer
+good at need; for as the world draws
+no distinction between their grave affliction
+and that other remediable misery of
+youth, it will sanction no other treatment
+than banter or mockery, which does but
+infuse yet more deeply the mournful dye.
+When this fails, it leaves its victims to the
+desolation which according to its judgment
+they have wilfully chosen; for the most<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span>
+part ignoring their existence, but often
+chastising them with scorpion-stings of
+disdain. Yet the subjects of this scorn,
+sufferers as I believe from a hereditary
+tendency matured by neglect into disease,
+deserve a more merciful usage than this,
+and their plea for extenuating circumstances
+should not be too impatiently rejected. For
+in them what is to most men a transient
+ailment has thrown down permanent roots
+to draw a nourishment from pain: and he
+who is fortunate enough to be whole
+should think twice before he makes sport
+of those in this distress.</p>
+
+<p>To me this malady seems to arise from
+an antinomy between the physical and intellectual
+elements of the personality, from
+an unhappy marriage of mind and body,
+suffering the lower of the two partners to
+abase the life of the higher by the long-drawn
+misery of a hateful but indissoluble union.
+When the physical and mental natures in
+a man are happily attuned, there is a fair
+concord in his life and the outward expression
+of his being is an unimpeded process,
+to which, as to the functions of a healthy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>
+organism, no heedful thought is given. If
+both natures are of the finest temper, they
+find utterance in a noble amiability and ease
+of manner; if both are coarse in the grain,
+they blend in a naïve freedom always sure
+of itself, the freedom of Sancho spreading
+himself in the duchess's boudoir. Between
+these two extremes there intervene a
+hundred compromises by which minds and
+bodies less equally yoked contrive to muffle
+the discordant notes of an inharmonious
+wedlock.</p>
+
+<p>In most cases use gives to this politic
+agreement the peace and permanence of
+settled habit; the body proves itself so
+far amenable that it is accepted as a needful
+if uninspiring companion, and its plain
+usefulness ends by dulling the edged criticisms
+of the mind. But wherever there is
+a permanent incompatibility too profound
+for compromise, an elemental difference
+keeping the personality continually distraught,
+then shyness, in the sense in which
+I understand it, assumes its inalienable
+dominion. The flame of rebellion may
+smoulder unobserved while the sufferer is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>
+in his own home, but among strangers it
+will blaze fiercely, as the mind protests
+against the misinterpretations of its unworthy
+partner. This burning shame is
+not the proof of a foolish conceit, as unsympathetic
+criticism proclaims it, but the
+visible misery of a keen spirit thwarted by
+physical defect. The man who manifests
+it is angered with himself because through
+a physical hindrance he has failed to take
+the place which would otherwise be his.
+He is proud, it may be, but not fatuous; for
+shyness as a rule implies a comparative
+quickness and alertness of intellect: its
+exceeding sensibility is exclusive of dulness;
+and it is frequently due to the presence in
+a reluctant body of a mind endowed with
+active powers.</p>
+
+<p>Inasmuch as diffidence appears where the
+subtler formalities of life are compulsory,
+it is clear that it essentially belongs to
+the class called gentle, for this class alone
+enforces that exacting code of etiquette to
+which our discomfiture is so largely due.
+Shyness has seldom place in the patriarchal
+life where men live, "sound, without care,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>
+every man under his own vine or his own
+fig-tree," nor among those who, perforce
+pursuing a too laborious existence, have no
+leisure for superficial refinements. Though
+here and there you may find a Joseph Poorgrass,
+it is rare among the simple; it is not
+a popular weakness, and therefore wins no
+popular sympathy. Such is its first social
+limitation: it is almost restricted to the
+classes which are outwardly refined.</p>
+
+<p>But it has another limitation of equal
+importance which may be described as
+climatic; for this malady is not found in
+equal degrees all over the habitable globe.
+There are many lands where it hardly
+exists at all even among the class which is
+alone liable to it; and in its serious form it
+is found only over a small part of the earth.
+There are many causes which conduce to
+this partial distribution. In one country
+manners are not minutely schooled, women
+being held of secondary account, and men
+content without subtlety; in another, life
+is in itself too primitive to devise the
+artifices of refinement; in a third, the
+fundamental disunion between the mind<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span>
+and the physical organism is prevented by
+the kindly hand of nature. For these
+reasons all the savage world, all the East,
+and the whole of southern Europe have
+little knowledge of the diffident, and what
+zoologists would call the area of distribution
+of the species is confined within narrow
+geographical limits.</p>
+
+<p>It is in fact chiefly in the north and west
+of our own continent that the haunts of
+the diffident are to be found, for there
+alone are all the conditions necessary to
+their maintenance fulfilled&mdash;a society sufficiently
+leisured and wealthy to have elaborated
+conventional rules of intercourse, the
+assemblage of both sexes upon an equal
+footing, and a climate which exaggerates
+the antagonism between the quick mind
+and the unresponsive body. Here the cold
+humid airs have produced a race with great
+limbs and great appetites, but compensated
+these gifts by a certain unreadiness in the
+delicate encounter of wits and graces. To
+these impassive natures all displays of the
+personality are distasteful, and the lighter
+social arts, seeming both insignificant and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>
+histrionic, are learned with difficulty and
+practised with repugnance. An awkwardness
+of address, in the uneducated almost
+bovine, becomes in the cultivated a painful
+reserve and self-consciousness, reflecting in
+open physical distress the uneasiness of the
+man's whole being.</p>
+
+<p>And among the northern nations which
+are thus afflicted England has achieved
+an undesirable supremacy, having herself
+smoothed the path of her eminence by a
+school system which withdraws her youth
+from female influences during the years
+when the tendency to reserve may be
+combated with a certain hope of success.
+It would ill become one who has never
+recovered from the effects of such deprivation
+to assume on the ground of his own
+narrow experience any wide dissemination
+of similar defects among his countrymen;
+his testimony would be received with
+suspicion, and he would be condemned
+as one who to justify himself would drag
+others down to his own poor level. Let
+me therefore place myself on surer ground
+by calling as a witness an impartial observer<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>
+from another country, one exceptionally
+trained in the analysis of national temperament
+and conduct.</p>
+
+<p>When M. Taine visited England towards
+the close of the nineteenth century one of
+the first things to attract his notice was
+the bashfulness which he encountered in
+unexpected places. He was surprised to
+meet travelled and cultured men who were
+habitually embarrassed in society, and so
+reserved that you might live with them
+six months before you discovered half their
+excellent qualities. To unveil their true
+nature there was needed the steady breeze
+of a serious interest or the hurricane of
+perilous times; the faint airs of courtliness
+could not stir the heavy folds that hung
+before their hearts. These strong men
+could not join in delicate raillery, but
+shrank back afraid; as if a tortoise, startled
+by a shower of blossoms, should withdraw
+into that thick carapace which can bear
+the impact of a rock. There was one who
+stammered pitifully in a drawing-room, but
+the next day sought the suffrages of electors
+with an unembarrassed and fluent eloquence,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>
+so proving that his failure came not of folly
+or cowardice, but from lack of training in
+a certain school of fence. He needed the open
+air for the play of his broadsword; and to his
+hand, apt to another hilt, the foil appeared
+a woman's weapon. Speaking of high aims
+and national ideals, he moved in a large
+place oblivious of himself; but in the
+social arena he tripped with timid steps,
+like a man essaying an unfamiliar dance.
+On the platform he had the enthusiasm
+and confidence of an orator; on the carpet
+he could not string three sentences in any
+courtly language.</p>
+
+<p>In the North the art of mercurial
+dialogue, which in the South is a natural
+gift, is only learned under favourable conditions,
+and is often condemned by those
+who have it not, as a popinjay's accomplishment.
+Immediate cordiality to
+strangers is frowned upon as tending to
+divorce courtesy from truth. It is otherwise
+with the southern peoples. While
+the Englishman conceals his benevolence by
+a frigid aloofness of manner, or blurts out
+friendliness like an indiscretion, the Italian<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>
+is courtly without a second thought, and
+the Frenchman seems the comrade of a
+chance acquaintance from the moment
+when he has taken his hand. They are
+amiable without effort in the security of a
+harmonious nature, and if they encounter
+diffidence at all, observe it like an anthropologist
+confronted with a survival of
+primitive times in the culture of a civilized
+age.</p>
+
+<p>Taine did not err when he found
+the home of shyness among the Teutonic
+peoples; he saw that it flourishes in climatic
+conditions acting hardly upon a vigorous
+race, and only allowing it to cultivate ease
+of manner by effort and outlay, just as they
+only allow it to raise under glass the grapes
+and oranges which more favoured peoples
+can grow in the open air. He saw too
+that this pain of diffidence becomes more
+subtle as the progress of culture makes us
+more sensitive to vague impressions from
+our environment, and tunes the nerves to
+a higher pitch. A shy nature upon this
+plane of susceptibility suffers anguish from
+an uncontrollable body; and even in peace<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span>ful
+moments the memory of the discomfitures
+so inflicted may distort a man's
+whole view of the world around him. He
+is impatient of the wit which demands a
+versatility in response beyond his powers,
+and persuades himself into contempt of
+those ephemeral arts to which his nature
+cannot be constrained. Irritated at the
+injustice which places so high in the general
+scale of values accomplishments which he
+cannot practise, shrinking from the suave
+devices of gesture and expression which in
+his own case might quickly pass into antic
+or grimace, he withdraws more and more
+from the places where such arts win esteem
+to live in a private world of inner sentiment.
+As he leaves this sure retreat but rarely
+himself, so he forbids ingress to others; and
+becoming yearly a greater recluse, he confines
+himself more and more within the
+walls of his forbidden city. The mind which
+may have been fitted to expand in the free
+play of intellectual debate or to explore the
+high peaks of idea, loses its power of flight in
+this cave where it dwells with a company
+of sad thoughts, until at last the sacrifice<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span>
+is complete and the perfect eremite is
+formed.</p>
+
+<p>But the virile Teutonic spirit does not
+suffer things to reach this ultimate pass
+without stubborn resistance, and this is
+one reason why shyness is often so conspicuous,
+seeming deliberately to court an
+avoidable confusion. Over and over again
+it forces the recalcitrant body back into
+the arena, preferring repeated humiliation
+to a pusillanimous surrender. People often
+wonder at the recklessness with which
+the shy expose themselves to disaster, forgetting
+that in this insistence of a soul
+under discomfiture, there is evidence of a
+moral strength which is its own reward.
+What discipline is harder than that which
+conscientious diffidence imposes upon itself?
+To stand forth and endure, though every
+instinct implores retreat, is a true assertion of
+the higher self for the satisfaction of imperious
+duty. Such deliberate return towards
+suffering is no cowardice, but a triumph over
+weak flesh; and the awkward strife of diffidence
+may often prove a greater feat of arms
+than the supple fence of self-possession.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Like the physical obstacles, the mists,
+the snows and bleak winds, which have
+hardened the fibre of northern men, diffidence
+as an obstacle to ease has its place
+among the causes of strong character; and
+those who appear at a first glance weak and
+ineffectual as Hamlet, will often in the
+light of knowledge be found guided by the
+most inflexible moral determination. They
+see, as in a mirage, peace supreme and
+adorable, but may not tread the hermit's
+path that leads to her dwelling. Only a
+religious vow might justify the abandonment
+of the human struggle, and even that
+appears desertion. The stern genius of the
+North grudges immurement, even to great
+piety, remembering that Christ himself
+remained but forty days in the desert and
+then returned to deliver the world. If he
+had remained there all his life, and never
+met the Pharisees and high-priests, our forefathers
+would have rejected his law. For
+this reason there can be no more rest for
+the shy than for starving Tantalus; for
+this reason my flight into the East had
+been foredoomed to failure.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>If shyness is thus affected by climate and
+geography, its birth and growth are also
+conditioned by historical causes. Just as
+it is the peculiar failing of northern and
+western peoples, so it is the creation of
+comparatively modern times; it had no
+place among the classified weaknesses of
+men until these peoples began in their
+turn to make history.</p>
+
+<p>In Greece, where limb and thought were
+consentient in one grace of motion, the
+body was too perfect an expression of the
+mind to admit any consciousness of discord;
+the greater simplicity of a life passed largely
+in the open air, left no place for awkwardness
+in the franker converse of man with
+man. Moreover the seclusion of women
+rendered unnecessary that complicated code
+of manners which the freer intercourse of
+the sexes has built up in later times as a
+barrier against brutality or the unseemly
+selfishness of passion. In Greece the words
+of the witty and the wise could be heard
+in the market-place; good conversation
+was not for the few alone; and the common
+man might of unquestioned right approach<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>
+the circle of Socrates or Plato. The sense
+of community was everywhere, overthrowing
+reserve, and propitious to the universal
+growth of fellowship.</p>
+
+<p>In the Roman world things were changed;
+there were more closed doors and courts
+impenetrable of access. Insignia of office,
+gradations of wealth and rank, sundered
+those of high estate from classes which now
+acknowledged their own inferiority; privacies,
+exclusions, distinctions innumerable,
+altered the face of public life as the easy
+<i>mos majorum</i> was confined by the ordinances
+of encroaching fashion. It was now that
+women began to be cast for leading parts
+upon the great stage of life. Under the
+Empire, by the rapid removal of her disabilities
+the Roman matron achieved a
+position of independence which made her,
+according to her nature, a potent force of
+good or evil. It was now that the intricate
+threads of social prescription were woven
+into that ceremonial mantle which was
+afterwards to sit so uneasily on the shoulders
+of barbarian men.</p>
+
+<p>But the time for shyness was not yet<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span>
+come, for Italy is a sunny land where clear
+air makes clear minds, blandly or keenly
+observant of the world, and never impelled
+by onset of outer mists and darkness to tend
+a flickering light within themselves. There
+was melancholy, high and stately, such as
+Lucretius knew, when he went lonely among
+the homesteads or along the shore; but it
+was too exalted to be one with diffidence,
+for he who will hold the sum of things in
+his thoughts walks on clouds above the
+heads of men, free of all misgiving. Perhaps
+beyond the Alps, in some Rhætian upland
+where Roman dignity was interfused with
+old barbaric roughness, the first signs of our
+malady were perceived and the first ancestor
+of all the shy was born. But even yet the
+time was not ripe, nor the place prepared.
+Christianity had to come, turning men's
+eyes inwards and proclaiming the error of
+the objective pagan way. A new feeling,
+the sense of personal unworthiness before
+God, spreading through the Roman world,
+now stirred mankind to still communing
+with themselves, and sanctioned the stealing
+away from the noisy festivals of life. By<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>
+enjoining a search into the depths of the
+heart, it encouraged the growth of a self-consciousness
+hitherto unknown. It was
+not always a panic of contrition, sweeping
+the joyous out of the sunlight into a monastic
+shade, which brought the troubled into a
+new way of peace, but sometimes a quiet
+joy in renunciation, congruous with a timid
+mood, leading by gradual allurement to
+cloisters of shadowy lanes and cells which
+were forest bowers. The new faith gave
+open sanction to evasion of the banquet,
+and thus fortified and increased those who
+loved not the ceremonial day. The spirit
+of solitude, no more a mænad, but a nun,
+sheltered earth's children in the folds of
+her robe, and no man said her nay.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, Christianity quickened the force
+of that feminine influence which Rome had
+first set flowing through the civilized world,
+but diverted the stream from irregular and
+torrential courses into a smooth channel
+gliding amid sacred groves. It clothed
+woman with ideal grace and virtue, and
+perceived in her powers which the virile
+mind could never wield. "Inesse quin<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>etiam
+sanctum aliquid et providum putant,
+nec aut consilia earum aspernantur, nec
+responsa negligunt." So our ancestors held
+in the northern woods, and Christianity,
+purifying and expanding their belief, fulfilled
+it with a new perfection.</p>
+
+<p>But this gradual binding of all men's
+limbs in silken cords of reverence, making
+a rude world civil, was now to inaugurate
+for diffidence its miserable career. Through
+the rough deference of the German camp,
+through the Provençal code of <i>courtoisie</i>,
+up to the modern law of fine manners, the
+drudge and chattel of the primeval tribe
+has risen to impose her law upon the modern
+world. Earth is better for this finer power,
+but social intercourse is less sincere. For
+woman, having curbed the brute man by
+conventional restraints of outward demeanour,
+has made human intercourse smooth
+and seemly, but imposed upon mankind the
+wearing of unnatural masks. Before the
+multitude of locked souls with labels of
+smiling faces the sensitive nature feels itself
+mocked, and is soon distraught. It cannot
+suffer convention gladly for an ultimate<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>
+good, but is chilled by this everlasting
+urbanity, which must, it fancies, be compact
+of irony and conceal a disingenuous
+soul.</p>
+
+<p>All this finished science of illusion is like
+an east wind to the confidences of the shy,
+and if they stay within its range they are
+blighted before their hearts have time to
+unfold. They long for a less biting air, for
+vernal hours in sheltered dells, where without
+sheaths and unguarded the hearts of
+flowers lie open to their neighbours and to
+heaven. There was once a simple day when
+religion set hearts interflowing, but now it
+can melt them only within the precincts;
+the fire which is carried from the altar is
+dead at the church door. The brotherliness
+of those early days is indeed often found in
+humble walks of life, but these we cannot
+continually tread, because our intellectual
+and artistic tastes find there no sufficient
+nurture. Among the cultured a cold convention
+often reigns, behind which only a
+more persistent nature than ours can pass.
+Unless, therefore, we find our way into some
+circle of gentle scholars or lovers of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>
+beautiful quite simple in their tastes, a
+thing possible but not often granted by
+a niggard fortune, we are perforce thrown
+back upon our own company, and move
+towards the grave alone. For this we
+accuse none; nothing is more at fault than
+our own constitution. But to us society is
+a school of dames, who are not to be blamed
+if amid the crowd that clamours for their
+teaching, they find no time for the backward
+scholar. We are the dunces of the school,
+and are dismissed without learning the
+accomplishments set forth upon the prospectus.
+That is why in our northern streets
+so many seeming hats are cowls.</p>
+
+<p>In England the loss of congenial intercourse
+is perhaps more certain than in other
+lands. For through his national reserve the
+highly-cultured Englishman has a cold perfection
+of good breeding to which heartiness
+is vulgarity; he emanates intimidation, and
+in courtesy is rather studious than spontaneous,
+seldom genial but in an ancient
+friendship. If you knew him to the concealed
+heart, and were suffered to assay the
+fine metal beneath this polished surface, you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>
+would win a golden friendship; but only
+on a desert island would he permit the
+operation. To the shy who may encumber
+his path his bearing seems marked by an
+indifference which they magnify into aversion,
+and are thereby the worse confounded.
+In a land where such convention reigns
+they go through life like persons afflicted
+with a partial deafness; between them and
+the happier world there is as it were a
+crystalline wall which the pleasant low
+voices of confidence can never traverse.</p>
+
+<p>I say, then, that the real, the enduring
+shyness is that inveteration of reserve to
+which a few men in a few countries are
+miserably condemned. Others know it as
+a transient inconvenience, as the croup or
+measles of childhood; but in us it is obstinate
+and ineradicable as grave disease. If
+out of the long frustration of our efforts to
+be whole some strain of bitterness passes
+into our nature; if sometimes we burn with
+unjust resentment against the fate which,
+suffers such lives as ours to be prolonged,
+let it be remembered in extenuation that to
+those who bear a double burden human<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>
+charity owes the larger kindliness. For
+though like you we bear our share of common
+troubles, O happier men and women,
+the common pleasures and compensations
+which are as wings upon your shoulders are
+heavy packs on ours. The cheerful contrasts
+are for you alone; for us the bright threads
+interwoven in the dark stuff of life were
+faded before they reached the loom.</p>
+
+<p>You who have the friendships and affections
+without which you would not care
+to live a day, think more kindly of those
+to whom the interludes of toil are often
+harder than the toil itself. Of your charity
+believe our fate ordained and not the
+choice of our own perversity; for what man
+born of woman would choose a path so sad,
+were there not within him some guiding
+and possessing devil which he could in
+nowise cast out? Never will in maddest
+hours of freedom consented to such doom;
+we were condemned at birth, our threads
+were spoiled upon the fingers of the Norns.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>Such in its broader outlines seemed the
+infirmity which had grown with my growth,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span>
+and now had to be reckoned with, like the
+bridle of Theages, as a permanent hindrance
+to a reasonable happiness. Old hopes lay
+shattered about me&mdash;well, I had to pick
+up the fragments and piece together a less
+ambitious ideal.</p>
+
+<p>I will not linger over the forces which
+helped my resolution, the great and general
+remedies which come to the relief of men
+in like evil case. Religion, philosophy, art,
+science, literature&mdash;all promised their anodynes
+against despair; slowly they stirred
+in me anew those springs of interest in life
+which disillusion seemed to have choked for
+ever. I rose up, and looking round upon
+the world saw that it was still good; and
+there came into my memory brave words
+which a golden book puts in the mouths of
+its indomitable knights: "I will take the
+adventure which God shall ordain me." I
+now perceived that if evil fortune had
+unhorsed me it had yet left me endurance
+to continue the combat on foot. My
+second failure was more final and disastrous
+than the first discomfiture in earlier life,
+but now the plague of pessimism was stayed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span>
+by a greater recuperative power. Those
+long hours of the long eastern day, spent
+under the verandah with books of many
+ages and languages, had not been altogether
+fruitless; they had helped to mature a
+wider and more catholic taste than that
+of restless youth, the kind of culture that
+brings not rebellion but peace.</p>
+
+<p>In my eastern watch-tower I had re-read
+the great books from a new point of vantage,
+and let the eye roam over fields of literature
+which lie beyond the undergraduate's
+bounds; by a still permeation of fine influence,
+my crude philosophy was unconsciously
+mellowed, as the surface of ivory,
+according to Roman belief, by the bland
+air of Tibur. For by the mere being in
+an atmosphere of serenity our nature grows
+porous to gracious influences streaming in
+we know not how or when, and taking their
+abode in our very grain and structure. And
+so without consciousness of good desert, I
+found myself confident in a new discipline,
+and looking for the word of command from
+wiser leaders than Byron or the youthful
+Shelley. Queen Mab was now the saddest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>
+rhetoric, and Childe Harold's plaint unseemly
+lamentation; I had erased from my calendar
+of saints the names of apostles of affliction
+once held in honour; the Caliph Amurath
+with his tale of fourteen happy days out of
+a long life of royal opportunity; Swift
+with his birthday lection from Jeremiah.
+Rather there trooped into memory with a
+quiet pomp and induction of joy, forms of
+men who, though justified in rebellion by
+every human suffrage, remained loyal to
+the end and proved by endurance a more
+imperial humanity. Socrates unperturbed
+by mortal injustice; Dante a deep harmonious
+voice amid jangling destinies;
+William the Silent serene in every desperate
+conjecture&mdash;these seemed now the more
+perfect captains. If exile had done no
+more than transfer my allegiance to such
+as these, I had not borne the lash in
+vain.</p>
+
+<p>But at the first setting out upon this
+later stage I had still mistakes to make,
+and the ascent to tranquillity was not to be
+accomplished without stumbling. It was
+the old Roman creed which first drew me<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>
+away from fretting memories; in its high
+restraint, as of a hushed yet mighty wind,
+it breathed a power of valiant endurance,
+and promised before nightfall the respite of
+a twilight hour. For stoicism has qualities
+which seem foreordained for the bracing of
+shy souls, as if the men who framed its
+austere laws had prescience of our frailty and
+consciously legislated to its intention. It
+is the philosophy of the individual standing
+by himself, as the shy must always stand,
+over against a world which he likes not
+but may not altogether shun. And in
+this proud estrangement it promises release
+from all the inquisition of morbid fears,
+and an imperturbable calm above the need
+of earthly friends or comfort or happiness;
+it plants the feet upon that path of nature
+along which a man may go strongly, consoled
+in solitude by a god-like sense of self-reliance.
+This immutable confidence is the
+essential power of stoicism, which does not,
+like the great oriental religions, tame personality
+by ruthless maiming, but teaches it
+to bear the brunt of adversities erect, like
+an athlete finely trained. Its very arrogance,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span>
+its sufficiency, perforce commend it to those
+whose instinct urges to self-abasement: its
+lofty disregard of adverse circumstance is
+medical to their timidity.</p>
+
+<p>And so in the hour of my bereavement
+its voice inspired to resistance like a bugle
+sounding the advance; its echoes rang with
+the assurance that man was not made to be
+the worm of Eden, darkly creeping in the
+dust, but rather its noblest creature, with
+the light crowning his head and the winds
+tossing his hair. And then its strong simplicity,
+so masculine and unemotional, was
+grateful to one now finally dismated, and
+so cruelly handled as to have, it seemed,
+no use for a heart any more. Better let
+feeling die than be betrayed by diffidence
+into the denial of its true allegiance, or into
+expressions of the inner life false and wry
+as the strange laughter which the doomed
+suitors in Ithaca could not control. Though
+it stifled feeling, the creed of Cleanthes
+exalted the intellect, which was all that
+now remained to me unimpaired; surely
+it was the appointed rule for one henceforth
+to be severed from the passions and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span>
+enthusiasms through which humanity errs
+and is happy.</p>
+
+<p>"The world," the wise Stoic seemed to
+say, "is twofold in its nature. Some things
+may be changed by man, others are by his
+utmost effort immutable. God has implanted
+in you a right reason by which,
+when it is well trained, you can infallibly
+distinguish between the two, avoiding
+thus all unworthy fretfulness and all idle
+kicking against the pricks. Therefore he
+has made you for happiness; for the joy
+of men is an achievement; and their misery
+in the coveting of the unattainable end. If
+you would fulfil his benevolent design, seek
+only what has been placed in your power,
+frankly resigning all that lies beyond; but
+be ever difficult in renunciation; test and
+sound well every issue, lest you leave a
+permitted good undone, than which nothing
+is a greater sin. To be loyal, to be contented,
+to acquiesce in all things save only
+in ameliorable evil, this is to live according
+to nature, which is God's administration.
+If you are assiduous in careful choosing, you
+will learn at last to make a right use of every<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span>
+event; you will be harassed no more by
+vain desire or unreasoning aversion, but will
+become God's coadjutor and be always of
+his mind. So, when external things have
+ceased to trouble your spirit, you will no
+longer be a competitor for vanities; but,
+enfranchised from all solicitude, you will
+have discarded envy and conceit and intolerance,
+which are the ill fruits of that vain
+rivalry. You will neither cringe before
+power nor covet great place, for alike from
+inordinate affection and from the fear of
+pain or death you will be free. Disenamoured
+of mundane things, you will live
+simply and unperturbed, in kindness and
+cheerfulness and in gratitude to Providence.
+Life will be to you as a feast or solemnity,
+and when it comes to a close, you will rise
+up saying, 'I have been well and nobly
+entertained, it is fit that I give place to
+another guest.'"</p>
+
+<p>The strength and mastery thus promised
+raised my dejected spirits, as the words of
+a new and sanguine physician may hearten
+one who had long lain stricken yet now
+dares to hope for the day of recovery. This<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>
+was a law which did not denounce the world
+as illusion or enjoin a cloistral seclusion upon
+the mind, but rather proposed each and
+every appearance as a touchstone on which
+the quality of personality should be unceasingly
+tried. By the constant application
+of a high standard to life, it seemed to
+implant an incorrupt seed of manliness, and
+to create in its disciples that saner mood
+which holds in equal aversion a Heliogabalus
+and a Simeon Stylites. So persuaded, I
+could join with the fervour of a neophyte
+in the Stoic's profession: "Good and evil
+are in choice alone, and there is no cause of
+sorrowing save in my own errant and wilful
+desires. When these shall have been overcome,
+I shall possess my soul in tranquillity,
+vexing myself in nowise if, in the world's
+illusive good, all men have the advantage
+over me. For all outward things I will bear
+with equal mind, even chains or insults or
+great pain, ashamed of this only, if reason
+shall not wholly free me from the servitude
+of care. Let others boast of material goods;
+mine is the privilege of not needing these
+or stooping to their control. I will have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span>
+but a temperate desire of things open to
+choice, as they are good and present, and
+the tempter shall find no hold for his hands
+by which to draw me astray. I will be
+content with any sojourn or any company,
+for there is none, howsoever perilous, which
+may not prove and strengthen the defences
+of my soul. For I have built an impregnable
+citadel whence, if only I am true to
+myself, I can repel assaults from the four
+quarters of heaven. Who shall console one
+lifted above the range of grief, whom
+neither privation nor insolence can annoy?
+for he has peace as an inalienable possession,
+and by no earthly tyranny shall be perturbed.
+Bearing serenely all natural impediments
+to action, trespassing beyond no
+eternal landmark, by no foolishness provoked,
+he shall become a spectator and
+interpreter of God's works; he shall ripen
+to the harvest in the sunshine and wait
+tranquilly for the sickle, knowing that corn
+is only sown that it may be reaped, and
+man only born to die."</p>
+
+<p>The mere repetition of these words, so
+instinct with the spirit of old Roman<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>
+fortitude, roused me to a more immediate
+resolution than any other form of solace.
+There are times when a splendour of exaggeration
+is the best foil to truth. The
+Roman's pride is the best corrective to the
+earthward bias of the diffident; by its
+excess of an opposite defect it drives us
+soonest into the mean of a simple and
+manly confidence. It is better for us first
+to repeat, "Dare to look up to God and
+say: Make use of me for the future as
+Thou wilt, I am of the same mind, I am
+equal with Thee.... Lead me whither
+Thou wilt," than to dwell upon such words
+as these: "It is altogether necessary that
+thou have a true contempt for thyself if
+thou desire to prevail against flesh and
+blood"&mdash;or these: "If I abase myself ...
+and grind myself to the dust which I am,
+Thy grace will be favourable to me, and
+Thy light near unto my head.... By
+seeking Thee alone and purely loving Thee
+I have found both myself and Thee, and
+by that love have more deeply reduced
+myself to nothing."</p>
+
+<p>This supreme abnegation may leave the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span>
+saint unharmed, but it is ill fitted for those
+who droop already with the malady of
+dejection. The divine wisdom which knows
+the secrets of all hearts and their necessities
+infinitely various, shall exact obedience
+according to no adamantine law: it loves
+not the jots and tittles of formalism, nor
+the pretensions of those who would cast all
+things in one mould. From those made perfect,
+from the saints whose links with earth
+are almost severed, whose sight begins to
+pierce gross matter through, it may accept
+prostration and endless contrite tears, knowing
+that to these, upon the very verge of
+illumination, the forms of slavery have lost
+their vileness. But to those who are still
+of earth and can but conceive God's fatherhood
+according to earthly similitudes, it
+will not ordain a prone obeisance. Such
+it will require to stand erect even in contrition,
+in that posture which is the privilege
+of sons. We who are unperfected affront
+God supposing him pleased with the prostration
+of his children. It is the ignorance
+of a feudal age that ascribes to him a
+Byzantine love of adulation; but that age<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>
+is no more, and he disserves the divine
+majesty who imputes to it a liking for the
+<i>esprit d'antichambre</i>.</p>
+
+<p>I did not need to dwell upon my weakness
+and misery but rather upon the grandeur of
+humanity, whose kinship and collaboration
+God himself does not reject. The Stoic
+phase was a useful stage on the road of
+convalescence, and the majestic words of
+Epictetus more helpful to a manlier bearing
+than the confessions of the saintliest souls.
+If, as is not to be doubted, there are others
+who seek an issue from the same dark region
+where I wandered, I do not fear to point
+them to the Stoic way, which like a narrow
+gorge cold with perpetual shadow is yet
+their shortest path upward to the high
+slopes lit with sunlight. Let them enter
+it without fear and endure its shadows a
+while, for by other ways they will fetch a
+longer compass and come later to their
+release.</p>
+
+<p>But when some interval had passed I
+became aware that this cold ideal was not
+the end, and that out of the gall of austerity
+sweetness should yet come forth. Wise<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span>
+men have said that all great systems of
+ethics meet upon a higher plane, as the
+branches of forest trees rustle together in
+the breeze; for though in the dark earth
+their roots creep apart, their summits are
+joined in the freedom of clear air. As I
+now struck inland from the iron shores of
+shipwreck, my heart warmed to a brighter
+and softer landscape, and with Landor I
+began to wish that I might walk with
+Epicurus on the right hand and Epictetus
+on the left. With a later thinker I reflected
+that if the Stoic knew more of the faith
+and hope of Christianity, the Epicurean
+came nearer to its charity. For it is true
+that Stoicism commands admiration rather
+than love. It was indeed too harsh a saying
+that "the ruggedness of the Stoic is only
+a silly affectation of being a god, to wind
+himself up by pulleys to an insensibility
+of suffering": that is the judgment of the
+bluff partisan, so shocked by the adversary's
+opinions that he feels absolved from any
+effort to understand them. But even those
+who in extremity have been roused to new
+valour by the precepts as by a Tyrtæan ode,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>
+for all the gratitude which they owe, will
+not impute to their deliverers an inhuman
+perfection. The Stoic does in truth wear
+a semblance of academic conceit, as though
+related to God not as a child to its father,
+but as a junior to a senior colleague. And
+with all its sufficiency, his philosophy seems
+too Fabian in its counsels; it is always
+withdrawing, passing by on the other side,
+avoiding battle&mdash;so that as a preparation
+for the uttermost ordeal it will often prove
+inferior to the reckless pugnacity of a narrow
+zealot.</p>
+
+<p>Then, too, it acts like a frost not merely
+upon personal, but upon national ambition,
+and so keeps the wellspring from the root.
+Its assumption of a superhuman fortitude
+accords but ill with scientific truth, for if
+with one bound every man may become as
+God, he will despise that infinitely slow
+upward progression which is the only real
+advance. But, above all, it lives estranged
+from tenderness, in which alone at certain
+hours of torment the distracted mind finds
+God's face reflected. It preaches renunciation
+of all vain aversions and desires; but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span>
+it repels sweet impulses that are not vain.
+By exalting apathy in regard to personal
+suffering, it becomes insensible to others'
+pain also. In the conviction that appeals
+for sympathy are avowals of unworthiness,
+it will have no part in the love of comrades,
+and it never discovered the truth that the
+strength and the compassion of the Divine
+are one perfection.</p>
+
+<p>There is a favourite mediæval legend
+depicted in one of the windows of the
+cathedral at Bourges, which exposes in a
+characteristic fashion this weakness of the
+Stoic's creed. The Evangelist St John,
+when at Ephesus, remarked in the forum
+the philosopher Cratinus giving a lesson of
+abnegation to certain rich young men. At
+the teacher's bidding the youths had converted
+all their wealth into precious stones,
+and these they were now bidden crush to
+dust with a heavy hammer in the presence
+of the assembled people, that so they might
+make public profession of their contempt
+for riches. But St John was angered at so
+wasteful a renunciation. "It is written,"
+he said, "that whoso would be perfect<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>
+should not destroy his possessions, but sell
+them, and give the proceeds to the poor."
+"If your master is the true God," replied
+Cratinus scornfully, "restore these gems
+again to their original form, and then they
+shall be bestowed according to your desire."
+St John prayed, and the precious stones
+lay there once more perfect in all their
+brilliance and splendour. The moral of
+the old tale is clear&mdash;that all virtue without
+charity is nothing worth; and that of
+virtue without charity, the Stoic's cold renunciation
+is the chief type and ensample.</p>
+
+<p>The insight into this higher truth did
+not come by inspiration, but was gradually
+imparted during long summer days, when
+I wandered from dawn to dark among the
+fields and woods. Hoping at first no more
+than to tire the mind with the body and
+so win a whole repose, I became by degrees
+receptive of a new learning from nature,
+which created new sympathies and kindled
+fresh ambitions. Naturally I again read
+Wordsworth, and now for the first time
+since childhood I knew what joys intimacy
+brings. I was one of a brotherhood, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>
+wherever I went was sure of a friendly
+salutation. Things that grew in silence
+became my friends; I was with them at
+all hours, in light and shadow, in warmth
+and cold, watching their gracious and
+responsive existences, which reject no good
+gift, but radiantly grow towards the light
+while it endures. Insensibly the spirit of
+this gentle expansive life was infused within
+me, until the heart which I had deemed
+useless and outworn, began to open like a
+flower scathed by frost, at the full coming
+of spring. The plants and trees were
+human to me, the brooks spoke with articulate
+voice; by that ancient witchery of
+animism, old as the relationship of man
+and nature, I was put to school again:
+until at last, absorbed in the vicissitudes of
+small things and surrendering reason to a host
+of pathetic fallacies, I was taught the great
+secret that life may not be centred in itself,
+but in the going out of the heart is wisdom.
+And as among human friends there are
+some to whom a man is bound by deeper
+and tenderer links than to the rest, so it
+is with these other friends which have no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>
+language, but only the wild-wood power of
+growing about the heart. Among their
+gracious company each man will discover
+his own affinity, and having found it will
+look on the rest of nature with brighter
+eyes. Some learn the great lessons from
+mountains, lakes, and sounding cataracts;
+others from broad rivers peacefully flowing
+to the sea. To me there spoke no such
+romantic voices. My wanderings led me
+through a country of simple rural charm,
+and the friends that became dearest to me
+were just our English elms.</p>
+
+<p>Who but the solitary, artists alone excepted,
+understand the full charm of elms in
+an English landscape? To us there is an
+especial appeal in their loneliness, as they
+range apart along the hedgerows, embayed
+in blue air and sunlight which do but play
+upon the fringe of your huddling forest.
+See them on a breezy August morning
+across a tawny corn-field, printing their
+dark feathery contours on a blue sky and
+holding the shadows to their bosoms; or
+on a June evening get them between you and
+the setting sun, and mark the droop and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span>
+poise of the upper foliage fretted black
+upon a ground of red fire. Here are no
+cones or hemispheres, or shapeless bulks of
+green, but living beings of articulated form,
+clothed in verdure as with the fine-wrought
+drapery that enhances rather than conceals
+the beauty of the statue.</p>
+
+<p>Or at a still later hour, over against the
+harvest moon, see them rise congruous with
+the gentle night, casting round them not
+palls of ominous gloom, but clear translucent
+shadows sifted through traceries of
+leafage which do but veil the light. And
+what variety of form and structure sunders
+them from other trees, what irregular persuasive
+grace. Some are tall and straight,
+springing like fountains arrested in the
+moment when they turn to fall; others
+bend oblique without one perpendicular
+line, every branch by some subtle instinct
+evading the hard angles of earth-measurement
+as unmeet for that which frames the
+sky; others again spread to all the quarters
+of heaven their vast umbrageous arms. No
+trees are so companionable as the elms
+to the red-roofed homestead which nestles<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>
+at their feet and is glad for them. Seen
+from a distance, how delightful is this
+association, how delicate the contrast of
+tile and leaf and timbered barn, each lending
+some complement to the other's fairest
+imperfection. Perhaps there will be a whole
+line of distinct trees, and then you will see
+as it were a cliff-side of verdure in which,
+beneath the billowy curves of lit foliage,
+there open caverns and cool deeps of shadow
+fit for a Dryad's rest.</p>
+
+<p>To know the elm-tree you must not come
+too near, for it too is wild and does not
+reveal its nature lightly; you may be cooler
+in the shadow of the beech or stand drier
+beneath the red-stemmed leaves of the
+sycamore. Yet it suffers the clinging ivy;
+it was beloved of poets in old days, and
+painters love it still. It has not the walnut's
+vivid green nor the rare flush that lights up
+the pine-stem. Its leaves are rough and
+of no brilliance; its bark is rugged also.
+But in life the familiar guardian of home
+meadows, it has stood by our fathers' landmarks
+from generation to generation, and
+when fallen and hewn and stacked it sheds<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>
+a fragrance which, wherever perceived in
+after years, brings back memories of
+wanderings in deep lanes and of the great
+dim barns where we played in childhood.
+In the dull winter days when only yews
+and cypresses wear their leaves, I sometimes
+wander to a place whose walls are hung
+with the works of many a seer and lover of
+elms; there seated before a few small frames
+I give them thanks for having read the dear
+trees truly, and glorified a close and barren
+gallery with all the breezes and colours of
+the fields: I am beyond all noise and murkiness,
+walking in the peace and spaciousness
+of unsullied air.</p>
+
+<p>To a mind now happily reverted to the
+primitive confidence in souls everywhere indwelling
+and creating sympathies between
+all things, the bonds of kinship between
+man and nature were drawn ever closer,
+and it seemed a wholly natural belief that
+the changes of the visible universe, affecting
+things which lived an almost personal existence,
+should be instinct with the deeper
+meaning of events in the drama of human
+existence.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Like the every-day life of men with its
+imperceptible attritions was the insensible
+growth and decay of things; as the tumult
+of his emotions were the storms and catastrophes
+that convulse the face of nature.
+The movement never ceased; the transforming
+power was never wearied; the
+spectator had but to give rapt attention,
+to be carried beyond his poor solicitudes
+to a participation in elemental processes of
+change in which the fates of humanity were
+mysteriously involved. The thought of this
+indissoluble union kept alive the sense of
+brotherhood within me, of responsibility in
+life, of interest in all that happens; and
+whether it was the daily contraction of a
+pond in drought, or a battle of ants by the
+wayside, or the first tinge of autumn upon
+the woods, all was ennobled by symbolic
+relationships to man's experience, which in
+the unceasing flow of their perception were
+lustral to a solitary heart, without them
+choked and stagnant.</p>
+
+<p>There was a certain heath-clad ridge
+which like a watch-tower set above a city
+never failed to bring before the ranging eye<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>
+some vision pregnant of those emotions by
+which the sense of humanity is quickened
+to a deeper consciousness of itself. The
+witchery of space was there always, and
+seemed to draw from the soul the clinging
+mists of her indifference. It was there that
+I saw nature in all her moods, and felt that
+to each my own moods responded; there
+that despondency, imagining her monotony
+of woe, was confuted by the saving changefulness
+of created things. I remember one
+day, when a summer storm was spending
+its fury, I stood upon this ridge and looked
+across the low lands that stretched away
+beneath me. They lay with all their
+boundaries confused by a pall of purple
+gloom, then darkly transparent, and dissolving
+before the returning sun, whose
+penetrative influence was felt rather than
+actually perceived. As I gazed, high in the
+veil of cloud there began faintly to gleam a
+spot of palest gold, so high that it seemed
+to belong to the sky and to have no part
+in an earthly landscape. Gradually it expanded,
+grew more vivid, and assumed form,
+other forms and tints emerged beside it,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span>
+until at last it was revealed as a ripe corn-field
+on the high slopes across the valley,
+and before many moments had passed, a
+long line of downs stood out in the pure air
+with a sculptural clearness, as if during the
+storm all had been uprooted and moved
+a whole league towards the spot where I
+stood. While the rainbow spanned the
+plain, and the thunder still rolled in the
+distance, all the opposite heaven cleared
+almost to the furthest horizon; but there
+a remoter range yet lay half-covered by a
+billowy mass of clouds, like the hull of a
+dismasted ship in the folds of her fallen
+sails. At last even this trace of the battle
+was gone; the sun shone unopposed; the
+wet lands and clear sky were lit with an
+intenser brightness for their transient eclipse.</p>
+
+<p>Then the humanity of all these things
+was borne in upon my mind, and I was
+affected by these vicissitudes shadowing
+forth the destiny of man, and reminding
+him in their beautiful and majestic procession
+that nature endures no perpetual
+gloom. The sudden ruin of a bright day
+in deluge and darkness and sonorous thunder,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>
+the timid reappearance of faint light, the
+natural forms strangely emerging from the
+perplexed wrack infesting the heaven, and
+at last seen as never before through leagues
+of pellucid air; the thunder's silence, the
+final and supreme triumph of light;&mdash;these
+swift yet utter revolutions of the visible
+world, by very grace of mutability, were
+rich with instant consolations for the soul's
+misgiving. They served to remind me that
+the fears, the spiritual conflicts, the darkness
+that seems eternal, are mere incidents of a
+summer noon and leave behind them a
+purer and serener day. Through all this
+close intercourse with nature my mind was
+being prepared for a healthier relation to
+my fellow-man, and my heart saved from
+the petrification of melancholy self-regard.
+The ever-growing delight in these inanimate
+things, the constant discovery of new
+charms as knowledge widened with experience,
+united to prevent stagnation and
+despair; they kept heart and mind alert
+for the perception of new glories; and it
+is from a clear sense of their salutary
+power that I dwell upon them in this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>
+record of a self-tormented life. How should
+he find life colourless whose eyes are often
+fixed upon the sky, who sees grey zones of
+cloud flush crimson before the sunrise, and
+at evening the wide air richly glowing,
+moted as with the bloom of plums and the
+golden pollen of all flowers?</p>
+
+<p>At the end of that summer I returned to
+the occupations of life, appeased and almost
+happy in this inheritance of new sympathies.
+And before long I found that these were
+themselves but precursors of that which
+was to come, and that like the paranymphs
+who escort the bride, they did but apparel
+the heart for a deeper and more abiding joy.
+They were busied about me in tranquil
+hours, and speaking not, but seeming to
+wait in gladness for another, they made me
+serenely expectant also. They destroyed all
+sadness of retrospect; they led me always
+forward; with faces transparent with the
+light of an inward happiness they seemed
+to promise a vision at each near bending
+of the way. From glad looks and gestures
+assuring imminent joy, I too was charmed
+into a like faith, and went on blithely in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span>
+the confidence of a coming illumination.
+Nor was that hope vain, for at length the
+mystery was made plain, and one day they
+brought me exulting into the presence of
+the Ideal Love.</p>
+
+<p>There is a place in every heart which
+must be filled by adoration, or else the
+whole will grow hard and wither like a
+garden whose central fountain is grown
+dry. And though the affection of mortal
+man or woman may abandon it, there
+remains yet this other love which by pure
+and strenuous invocation may be drawn to
+it, and dwell in it, to the ennoblement of
+life; so great is the care of providence for
+mortal need. Love is our need, and it is
+given, if we despair not of it, even to such
+as have rarely felt the glow of earthly
+passion. For love is of many kinds; yet
+the palest and most subtle of its forms are
+made real to those who believe, and may
+become the guiding influences of their lives.
+Such are the visions of the ideal love to
+which those glad natural sympathies now
+led me, leaving me alone awhile that I
+might worship the orient light. And when<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span>
+I came out from that presence I rejoiced
+indeed, for the path was clear for my return,
+and life was now glad with promise like an
+orchard burgeoning with white blossoms.
+Old memories crowded back on me of hours
+beneath the cedars with the Phædrus and
+the Vita Nuova, hours made happy with
+intellectual and austere delights. But
+now the joy was other than intellectual,
+though significant tenfold, for then in untried
+youth I had wondered at the beauty of an
+imaginary world; now with eyes that had
+looked on desolation I perceived that these
+visions were true. For had they been no
+more than airy fancies, they surely had
+not endured throughout these long ages in
+our laden and mortal air.</p>
+
+<p>It was not merely the beauty of a literary
+setting which had preserved them: the
+craftsman's skill might indeed have enhanced
+their natural splendour, but it
+could not have alone inspired them with
+this perennial life. The gem with fire in
+its heart outlives the delicate setting;
+though it may be maltreated and buried
+for centuries by the wayside, it will come<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span>
+to light when the gold that framed it is
+long battered or lost, and will be desired
+by new generations for its inherent and
+unalterable beauty.</p>
+
+<p>Not Plato's or Dante's creative power,
+but truth surviving all incarnations of
+genius, has kept this celestial gem aglow:
+they have but celebrated that which was
+never mortal, and guided wandering eyes to
+heaven's most beautiful star. This intangible
+and unincarnate vision exacts more
+from its votaries than the love which
+walks the earth: holding the lover ever in
+the strain of apprehension, it inures him to
+unwearying worship, and itself moving in
+regions incorruptible, never loses the glory
+of its first hour. The years may pass, but
+one face, like a hallowed thing, abides
+continually; years may fret and corrode
+other ideals, but to this they add beauties
+of ever fresh significance. The auroral glow
+is always round it, brightening the world,
+until it becomes an emblem of illumination
+and the symbol of eternal truths.
+This visionary presence wakes aspiration to
+new effort and touches the intellect with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>
+passion; beleaguered thought sallies out
+with new strength, and the frontiers of
+darkness recede before it. From this comes
+the quickening of the heart without which
+hope wanes and the mind is barren: the
+deep pure joy of contemplation awakens all
+that is best in the soul, which goes towards
+it on tense wings of desire. And as with
+time it draws further from the earth, and,
+following, the soul essays ever higher flights,
+it is often poised at a great height as in a
+trance of motion, whence it looks back
+upon the world it has left, and round it
+upon other worlds. Then, its love-range
+being wondrously expanded, it sees beyond
+that visionary countenance, which dissolves
+and forms again like a delicate wreath of
+mist; and clear starlight falls upon it from
+every side, so that all shadow is destroyed.
+And when it returns to earth again, and is
+forced to contemplate meaner things, it is
+now aware that the very soil is compacted
+of dust of stars, and that he who looks listlessly
+upon creation is unworthy of the
+human name. And so continually flying
+forth and returning, it weaves endless<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span>
+bonds between the infinitesimal and the
+infinite, forgetting how to despise, which
+is the heavenly science.</p>
+
+<p>All this ardour is awakened and sustained
+by love, which began in sense and is
+now transformed. Through each succeeding
+change it is known for the same divine
+power which has so attuned the body
+that it vibrates no more to desire alone,
+but is now become resonant beneath a
+faint and spiritual breath.</p>
+
+<p>It is an old story that love is sightless,
+but that is the love which romps among
+the roses and is blinded by their thorns.
+There is another and a better tradition
+that love's eyes pierce heaven, and this is a
+great truth; for infinity is cold and vaporous
+until man projects upon it his mortal
+ideal, his conception of an earthly love
+transfigured. When this beloved guide
+appears throned above him as in the clouds,
+he dares to lift his eyes, and there he reads
+through its light the divine purports of his
+existence. Is it a small thing to stand,
+though but for a moment, searching infinity
+undismayed? This is the celestial<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span>
+ocean to whose shore he is come; and now
+"drawing towards and contemplating the
+vast sea of beauty, he will create many fair
+and noble thoughts and notions in boundless
+love of wisdom, until on that shore he
+grows and waxes strong, and at last the
+vision is revealed to him of a single science,
+which is the science of beauty everywhere ... beauty
+absolute, separate, simple,
+everlasting, which without diminution,
+without increase, or any change, is imparted
+to the ever growing and perishing
+beauties of all other things."</p>
+
+<p>To some the great perception comes but
+late, rising from the ashes of love's common
+furnace. But they whose hearts have never
+been consumed in these roaring flames may
+find it earlier; and purged from all taints
+of jealousy and covetousness, may pass
+straightway into the bliss of a higher union.
+This is that supreme affiance and espousal
+of the soul wherein they may be released
+into a larger air, undelayed by the earthward
+longings and gradual initiations of
+seemingly happier men. Thus its servants
+do not decline into slothful service, but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>
+are strenuous always; raised above the
+acquiescence of use, they never know the
+cloying of fruition or suffer the barbarian
+conquest of indifference. Their soul is
+unaffected by material circumstance or
+misfortune, and illuminates their lives as
+often as in the silent hour of meditation
+they concentrate their thoughts upon its
+grace. The cup of earthly love, even the
+noblest, is often dipped in Pyriphlegethon,
+and the draught it offers scathes the palate
+until its finest sensibility is for ever
+dulled. Those who have quaffed this liquid
+fire can no longer understand his mood
+who leaves the roses and the wine to toil
+through deserts in search of limpid water.
+They think him madly ungrateful for God's
+good gifts, a fool abandoning joy proved
+and present for a shadow far and incomprehensible.
+But they who have not denied
+themselves are no longer fit judges of him
+who has renounced. They cannot know
+that by this renunciation the senses are
+thrice refined, and receive as a vital influence
+the stellar beam which falls chill and
+ineffectual upon a grosser frame. They<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>
+cannot believe that this love from the
+infinite distance wields as mighty a force
+over renunciant lives as the near flame of
+passion over their own. But, for all their
+denial, it lives and puissantly reigns. It
+reigns in very truth predominant, this
+ideal love to which space exists not and
+propinquity is nothing; and it will have
+none for its subjects but those who by
+bereavement or aspiration or intense purity
+are inly prepared for its dominion.</p>
+
+<p>Happy therefore are the shy if in the
+midst of their tribulation they are guided
+to the gateway of so bright a kingdom. It
+may well be that we must first be led thither
+by some dear-remembered and virgin form
+once almost ours through earthly love, but
+now joined to us only by an imperishable
+and mystic union. Our sight may at
+first need the embodied beauty to give it
+the finer powers by which the revelation
+of the ideal grows familiar to us, but is at
+last attainable without mortal intervention
+by an immediate flight of the soul. Until
+that late day of enlightenment we must still
+be set upon the celestial path by a touch<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>
+of human tenderness; a pure yet sensuous
+yearning must be ours when we are first
+girded to the ascent. If there are beings
+which attain the fulness of the ideal love
+without the first inspiration of a fair earthly
+form I know nothing in creation to which
+they may be likened, nor had I ever part
+in so rare an enfranchisement. The vision
+that now entrances my soul first arose from
+a living, breathing form radiant with earthly
+brightness and instinct with every charm
+which brings men fawning to the feet of
+women. The sensuous frenzy which lovers
+sing was also mine, the tremor of the heart,
+the vibration of the very life; the deep
+seventh wave of passion rioted through me
+also. But from the first amazement of the
+shaken being it was not given me to pass
+through satisfaction into tranquillity; I
+was held long in a whirl of trouble; in the
+anguish of denial I learned initiation into
+the mystery which is eternal and supreme.</p>
+
+<p>It is good for some of earth's children
+that passion should be stayed before it
+makes ashes of the fancy; for if it does
+but touch for a moment only to be with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>drawn
+for ever, it does not destroy, but
+by its meteoric passage kindles the imagination
+with the glow of an incorruptible
+flame. It is with them long enough to
+brand upon memory the image which,
+though never renewed before their bodily
+eyes, by its very severance from perception
+puts on an immortality of virginal grace.
+Love is understanding, said the poet of
+Heaven and Hell, and love ennobled
+through renunciant years shall at the last
+encompass the world. The sensuous glow
+that first quickened the heart of youth is
+transmuted into a purer fire akin to that
+which moves the spheres.</p>
+
+<p>To know this truth is their compensation
+who are swiftly withdrawn from the warm
+radiance of earthly love. They are stricken,
+but before passion blinds them are rapt into
+a high solitude, whence, if they truly love,
+an infinite prospect is unrolled before them.
+They know desire; but as their passion
+was hopeless in this world, their steps were
+mercifully set upon a new path, whereby
+the bodily semblance of the beloved became
+the symbol of spiritual comeliness, alluring<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span>
+the beholder into the peace of a serene and
+unworldly mood. A thin and rarefied ideal,
+you say, a mirage which no wayfarer can
+approach: experience rejects these subtleties,
+and to these creations of a dream
+human affection was never given. True,
+to hearts established and content in happy
+unions, to minds preoccupied with the near
+cares and pleasures of a home, our distant
+visions may appear frail structures wrought
+in mist by homeless fancy. But for the
+exiled heart they are not such, but verities
+of abiding inspiration. For the ideal love
+did not die with Plato, but came again in
+mediæval Italy, and who shall say that even
+our material age has banished it from the
+earth?</p>
+
+<p>No indeed it is not dead, the ideal love,
+but indwells, a redeeming power, wherever
+there are desolate hearts and minds to be
+updrawn and united by its ministry; a
+power so lustral in its nature, that no abject
+and despairing thought creeps into its
+presence but is purified and exalted by its
+regard. This love brings hope and cheerful
+constancy; with a shining falchion it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span>
+affrights into their natal darkness the
+monstrous forms of despair, and lends to
+all work a secret charm of chivalry. It
+sustains that high anticipatory mood to
+which life is but a preparation, and the
+bees buzzing round the honey-flowers seem
+poor things toiling for an inessential gain.
+Because it is mystic and transcendental it
+is the predestined guide of all whom fate
+holds removed from earthly love. This is
+the old device of the world's failures, you
+say, to trick themselves out in Plato's mantle
+or the schoolman's cowl, and conceal their
+spite beneath the pretensions of the mystic.
+But I answer that the causes which moved
+the Greek and the Florentine are still at
+work among mankind to-day; they have
+never ceased, however much obscured by
+the glare of triumphant luxury or the stress
+of miserable toil. Often when disillusion
+has laid bare a soul, this love which did but
+slumber awakes to contest with envy or
+despair the possession of a wounded heart.
+I aver that any exile from the happier earth
+whose heart is pure, if he invokes this love
+with ardent faith, may unbar his door and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>
+feel that it has passed his threshold. Let
+us never be persuaded that the ideal world
+is far from this earth of ours, or that the
+way to it may not be daily traversed by
+him who has submitted to the heavenly
+guide. Not even the close entanglement
+of common cares can avail to
+keep such an one from his love; but as
+Bishop Berkeley is said to have been able
+to pass in a moment from the consideration
+of trifling things to the throne of thrones
+and the seats of the Trinity, so this lover
+shall overpass with easy and habitual flight
+the barriers that hold most men life-long
+prisoners.</p>
+
+<p>For to the Spirit that is chastened and
+endures there is given a power of flight and
+poise, by which, if it abandon itself to the
+celestial wind, it may instantly remove from
+the deeper planes of life, as a bird by the
+mere slanting of its wings is carried in proud
+quiescence into an upper region of the air.
+He shall know instant release from the
+leaguer of disillusion and vain solicitudes;
+in the light of one beautiful and compassionate
+countenance the unquiet memories<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span>
+of failure shall give up their exceeding
+bitterness.</p>
+
+<p>And though the style and instinct of
+modern life are hostile to such love, though
+in prosperity it is ignored and in adversity
+often overborne by a vain uproar of lamentation,
+yet even in a self-indulgent and furious
+world it still draws many to the severe
+exaltation of its service. We cannot approach
+the heights where a Plato and a Dante
+walked with ease, but far beneath upon the
+lower slopes we can draw a breath of new
+life as we fix our weaker eyes upon the
+glory which they saw so near. Although the
+men who have there ascended are a supreme
+company, we may yet presume to follow;
+for let it never be said that the gods have
+reserved for surpassing genius the consolation
+of which lesser men have so much
+deeper need. But he who would reach a
+serener air must press forward strenuously;
+for as a mountain may have one bare and
+northern slope, and another sunlit and
+clothed with verdure, and yet there may be
+a path on each side to the summit, so it
+is with the ascent to this felicity. One<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>
+lingers amid pleasant groves and laughing
+waters; another, undistracted by the beauty
+of any lower zone, but fixing his eyes upon
+the far summit, crosses the chill rocky
+slopes, never feeling the warmth of the sun
+and only seeing his brightness reflected
+from the highest peak. Though the ways
+of the two travellers lie far apart until the
+end, their endurance may be crowned with
+the same reward; but he who knew no
+dalliance and plucked no fruit has from the
+beginning seen the goal clearly, and lived
+steadfastly in its distant promise. And do
+you tell me that this is not love or joy, you
+who saunter in the verdant southern valleys
+breathing a present happiness with the
+perfume of a thousand flowers? Your way
+may lead you upward after long vicissitudes,
+but endurance will more swiftly fail you for
+the last most arduous ascent. Very love is
+of the heights, and he whose thoughts have
+long been thither exalted will breathe with
+least pain the attenuate upper air.</p>
+
+<p>To this pilgrimage the diffident are foreordained;
+it is their happiest hour when
+they take staff and scrip and set out in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>
+earnest for the shrine built among the
+mountains. The gardens of Armida are
+not for them, nor the warm breezes fragrant
+of fruit and flowers; but the vision of a
+far peak flushed at sundawn draws them
+onward, and strength and peace are increased
+upon them throughout the great
+ascent. He is still too rich for pity to
+whom renunciation brings these high and
+enviable hours.</p>
+
+<p>But the heavens are not opened every
+day, and the adept of these mysteries must
+walk the dull round of common life like
+other men, not warmed as they are by the
+glow of constant friendship, yet cheered by
+intermittent flames of remembrance and
+of hope. The real life of the diffident is
+cunningly hidden from those around them,
+for whom, indeed, it is wont to have faint
+interest; but before you who have often
+sought me out through fair and foul weather,
+I may venture to undo the pack of small
+resources which brings variety and distraction
+into lonely days.</p>
+
+<p>Firstly, I still dare to haunt the forecourts
+of philosophy. Into her inner courts I may<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>
+not penetrate, lacking the leisure which her
+whole service demands; yet the loiterings
+which I may still enjoy are to me like
+voyages into a foreign country, and give my
+mind the healthful enjoyment of change;
+they are not long enough to bring that
+whole detachment from daily life which, in
+my case, might prove a perilous advantage.
+All that I need for common use is a simple
+rule based on a few fundamental thoughts
+to give me a course upon the wayward
+ocean, and though it be full of error as the
+Almagest, yet it shall surpass the thumb-rules
+of Philistia. It must be a doctrine
+which allows imagination her right and
+durable career, and therefore not be monist.
+For materialism is too wildly imaginative at
+the start: like a runner who at the outset
+overstrains his heart and thereafter runs no
+more, the follower of this creed, by his
+postulate of a blind impersonal Law,
+exhausts his power of speed and plods
+henceforth eyes downward over flattest
+plains of dulness. That my mind may
+remain curious and alert in isolation, I must
+conceive in the universal scheme a power<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>
+that does not alone impel, but also draws
+me forward. For were it true that the
+sum of things blunders from change to
+change, swept by blind force into uncharted
+voids, I should abandon myself in despair
+to that hopeless course, and drift indifferent
+to the direction or the end.</p>
+
+<p>Let me rather believe that if each several
+idea is compacted by my active intelligence
+out of some vast system of relations, then
+only a supreme intelligence akin to man's
+can brace together the whole system or
+universal sum of things. For this earth, yes,
+and all the complex of the spheres, exist
+to me imperfectly as idea alone, nor can I
+conceive them any complete existence apart
+from a kindred but omniscient mind. Each
+advance in human knowledge should then
+be an infinitesimal approach towards the
+supreme comprehension; and the aspiring
+race of man is justified in that inchoation
+of long hope which is folly to the single
+life.</p>
+
+<p>I would also believe that new relations
+between things may be detected not merely
+by the staid and ordered process of collating<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span>
+abstractions, which is science, but by swifter
+and more genial methods of intuition.</p>
+
+<div class="block">
+<div class="poem">
+"Hurrah for positive science,<br />
+Long live exact demonstration!"<br />
+</div></div>
+
+<p>cried Walt Whitman, exulting over the filed
+fetters of mankind; and let us all echo the
+cry, nor ever forget the razed Bastilles of
+superstition. But there glimmers a wealth
+of truth in the penumbra beyond our
+lanterns to which science will creep too
+slowly without the aid of imagination.
+Yet this truth may be seized by swift sallies
+into the darkness, and assured to us as it
+were by some dim apperception of the soul,
+when the whole personality is made tense,
+and subtly anticipates the cosmic argument.
+Life is too short to renounce this daring:
+the sense of kinship with the All-Consciousness
+sanctions if not commands the right
+adventure.</p>
+
+<p>It was this feeling which led William
+Blake to exclaim in his impulsive way, that
+to generalize is to be an idiot, that direct
+perception is all, and the slow process of
+the inductive reason a devil's machination.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span>
+This method of intuition is to the more
+sober method of science as the romantic
+to the classical spirit in literature, permitting
+to the individual mind a licence of noble
+vagrancy. But it must be a law for the
+ordinary intelligence to exercise the two
+apart, else it will fall into sick fancies of
+excitement, and by abuse of wild analogies
+lose the vital art of balance and sane comparison.
+Only the greatest minds, endowed
+as it were with some divine genius of
+extrication, may dare to practise the two
+together. So Leonardo da Vinci drove
+inference and intuition abreast without
+disaster, and gathered from purple distances
+of thought their wildest and most splendid
+flowers. To him, as has been well said,
+philosophy was something giving strange
+swiftness and double sight, clairvoyant of
+occult gifts in common or uncommon
+things. The doom of Phæton awaits those
+who now would follow that marvellous
+course; but the poetic observation of
+resemblances in things remote, which lent
+so rich a colour to the science of the Renaissance,
+may yet be trained in all our minds;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span>
+and the philosophy which trusts in the slow
+suffusion of the worlds with intellectual
+light will bless and encourage its reasonable
+growth.</p>
+
+<p>Such a philosophy brings also a living
+sympathy with art. For the artist ever sees
+a perfection of truth beyond his rendering,
+yet always calling for expression; there is
+something eternally missed by his highest
+effort, and he can never know complacency.
+The philosophy which conceives the gradual
+growth of form through consciousness
+towards a perfection infinitely removed,
+yet in its remoteness drawing up our life
+as the moon sways the tides&mdash;this surely
+is the artist's wisdom. Idealism is like
+love, <ins title="apora porimos">&#7940;&#960;&#959;&#961;&#945; &#960;&#8057;&#961;&#953;&#956;&#959;&#962;</ins>, holding us as it were
+in touch with the intangible: it will have
+us conceive the Absolute without that helpless
+absorption in thought which changed
+Amiel's life from a fountain to a vapour:
+it would keep us near the surf and confluence
+of things. Its function is not to
+give any mysterious transcendental knowledge,
+but to serve culture "by suggesting
+questions which help to detect the passion,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span>
+and strangeness and dramatic contrasts of
+life." And not only to bring suggestions,
+but repose, by granting to eyes wearied
+with minute concerns the contrasts of vast
+times and spaces, the majestic idea of the
+Whole; to change the focus and variously
+dispose the perspectives of familiar things.</p>
+
+<p>An old watchmaker, whose window overlooked
+a wide meadow, used ever and again
+to lay down his instruments to gaze out
+upon the expanse of green, pasturing upon
+it a wandering vague regard, and absorbing
+from it an assuagement of his wearied senses
+which, he said, served him more effectually
+after these bright interludes. The province
+of Metaphysics should be to us as to this
+wise workman his field; not a place to
+dream our days away in, but for occasional
+resort; in which we may forget the infinitesimal
+in healing visions of broad space
+and colour. I counsel every lonely man to
+satisfy what has been described as the
+common metaphysical instinct, and according
+to his powers to become a metaphysician.
+There is no discipline which so well consists
+with solitude, none which so instantly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span>
+enfranchises the mind from the tyranny of
+mean self-interest or vain and envious
+polemics. Men do not grow sour and
+quarrelsome about the Absolute: everything
+that is polemical is inspired, as
+Michelet once said, by some temporal and
+momentary interest. The man who has
+climbed to the Idalian spring comes down
+benevolent. He does not grudge this toiling
+ant his grain, that snarling dog his
+bone, but is content to live serene, in the
+certainty that his soul has great provision,
+and that though all human things are small,
+each is worth its while. Into his hand
+there is given a scale by which life is known
+in its fair proportions; a tranquil joy,
+disturbed neither by dirges nor Epinician
+odes, is poured into his heart and exalts
+him above distraction. He respects himself
+as akin to that great Self whose perfection
+shall one day be known; he understands
+the passion for the ideal through which men
+die young; he wonders at envy and in the
+happiness of enfranchisement would have
+all men free.</p>
+
+<p>The pages of this Almagest are for the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span>
+exceptional hour; but daily, as one bookish
+from the nursery, I read much in many
+directions. For if books are called the best
+friends of happy men, to the sad they are
+saviours also. And when I remember too
+clearly what I am, I turn perhaps most
+often to Lucretius. For of all those who
+have taken up the pen to assuage the
+miseries of men, it is he who sings most
+bravely of the great endurance. This
+austere enthusiast, whose soul was never
+fused in the fire of friendship; who went
+apart, as it were, amid thunders upon the
+lonely heights; who, without any lover,
+yet loved his kind so well that all the years
+of his maturity, how short and splendid a
+period, were poured forth in one song of
+human consolation,&mdash;this man for all the
+madness of his creed, was yet aflame with
+a wisdom to be called divine. That calm
+face, lit with one desire&mdash;to drive the furies
+from the way and soothe the frightened
+children of men, is ever among the nobler
+countenances which fancy summons about
+my bed. Over the anxious heart they
+flow, those slow cadences, so vibrant yet<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span>
+so magnificently passionless, until the nerves
+of pain cease to throb, and fear shrinks as
+a taint impossible to the patient of such a
+physician. It is not his to intimidate or
+denounce, to evoke visions of lurid hell, to
+linger over dire vaticinations, or apportion
+to each his grade of torment, but with
+cool fingers to smooth the hair back from
+the forehead, and in grave, tender accents
+to say: Sleep now, for it was a dream.</p>
+
+<p>Landor, in a fine passage, compared the
+merciful tolerance of the Roman poet with
+the pitiless ire of Dante, contrasting in
+respect of the quality of mercy these two
+poets, one in their austere perfection, but
+so different in their vision of death, and
+judgment, and ultimate reward. The seer
+of lost worlds has written his own defence,
+and was indeed but attacked to point the
+sharp antithesis; but Lucretius, though he
+owes it to a literary feint, is very finely
+praised. And to me it seems that his
+compassionate mood increased upon him
+just because he was not emulous of the
+world's gifts or earnest for its pleasures,
+but withdrew from the press, and lived<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span>
+out his few great years contemplating apart
+the vicissitudes of orbs and men. He did
+not wait in ante-chambers or sit at wedding
+feasts; but severing all entangling and
+intricate threads of observance, followed
+the voice which called him to solitary
+places of illimitable prospect. It was not
+through disillusion or injustice, or wounded
+pride, that he walked aloof; but loneliness
+was his birthright, and from the hills and
+headlands to which solitude allured his
+steps he saw the dust of mad encounters
+rise to heaven, and the rent sails of foundering
+galleys. He saw, and could not but
+be wrung with pity for man deafened to
+wise counsel by the noise of vanities, and
+fiercely conspiring to precipitate his doom.
+As he went by shore and upland, there
+gathered in his mind those resonant hexameters
+of warning or consolation, those
+similes from the life of husbandry and dumb
+things, which, set like diamonds in clay,
+lend to the most arid arguments their own
+incomparable splendour, or that homelier
+beauty which instantly pierces the defences
+of the heart. Not diffident as we, but of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>
+a nature so infinitely absent and reserved
+that in the legend his wife must concoct a
+philter to remind him of his love, he is of all
+the pagans the best companion for our
+angrier moods. An archaic and elemental
+serenity is upon his language and thought,
+rebuking our unprofitable petulance; if
+emotion gains him he finds utterance in
+those tremendous periods "where single
+words seem to gather out of the deep and
+to reverberate like thunder." As the reverberation
+dies away and the clouds are pierced
+by the sun, the world is seen in new lights
+through an air clear as upon rain-swept
+mountains.</p>
+
+<p>As my reading is incessant, so also is my
+writing. For the happiness of man is in
+his fertility, and of barrenness comes the
+worst despair. To be happy is to have
+issue&mdash;children, or books written, or things
+beautifully wrought, or monuments of goodness
+to live after you, if only in the memory
+of some tiny hamlet of the folded hills.
+This is the law of life that Diotima knew,
+by which flower and tree, animal and man,
+fulfil the end of their creation; and man in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span>
+nothing more surely proves his lordship
+than by his many-handed hold upon posterity.
+For the lower creation is procreant
+in one way, but man in many; who may
+have offspring not of body alone but of
+mind and heart, and be so redeemed from
+the grim dismay of childlessness. The
+greatest human happiness is to be fertile
+in every way, a thing granted rarely in
+the world we know; the next, perhaps, is
+that of the parent who gives all of himself
+to his family, not tilling any field beyond
+the charmed walls confining his desire.
+The author sure of his fame, the born artist,
+the benefactor of his kind, are also happy,
+seeing their offspring grow in years and in
+the power of making a brighter world.</p>
+
+<p>But he is miserable who, aspiring to follow
+these, feels his force wane within him while
+he remains yet fatherless; or who has
+sons stillborn, or weakly, or dishonoured.
+I question whether sheer degradation into
+evil brings more pain to man than such
+sense of sterility or frustrate parentage. But
+it is no small part of human redemption that
+none need know the interminable misery.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span>
+A man may have neither sons nor genius,
+but in the dark hour he can go out and
+give, if it be only a penny or a kind word,
+and on that foundation build a temple
+to receive his thanksgiving. To give of
+yourself is good. This is that grand agreement
+and &oelig;cumenical consent to which
+those words <i>quod ab omnibus quod ubique</i> in
+deed and truth may be applied. For this
+reason meanness is of the deeps, and avarice
+groans in the lowest zone of hell. And if
+there are faces of blank and permanent
+despair upon your path, be sure that these
+are not masks of whole men, but of
+those who wilfully abstained from joy and
+have received the greater damnation. My
+children are mostly writings, poor weakly
+creatures dying inarticulate and unchristened,
+tenderly remembered by myself only,
+but at least no nuisance to the world. I
+loved them at their birth, I hold them in
+remembrance, though they were ever of a
+hectic and uncertain beauty.</p>
+
+<p>The comparison of children with branches
+of the olive is not the mere ornament of a
+Bible verse, but the wisdom of one who knew<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span>
+both tree and child. For as children are
+bright creatures of swiftly changing moods,
+so are the olive leaves in the blue southern
+air. I once read of an artist who essayed
+to paint a group of olives and a cypress
+growing before them. Against their silvery
+leaves its dark burnished form stood finely
+mysterious, the contrasting grey lending it
+a depth of almost sable colour; all was
+propitious for his work. Then suddenly,
+the air being to all seeming quite still,
+the grey-green leaves began to shake and
+quiver, until each olive tree was like a silver
+bonfire, tremulous with a thousand waves
+of white flame flowing and following along
+the branches. It was a revelation and
+swift effluence of life, perplexing and full
+of charm. The brush was laid down, the
+moment of inspiration gone, before the
+capricious leaves ceased their quivering to
+be robed once more in grey, casting on
+the ground that translucent shadow which
+tempers the sunlight only, and does not
+spoil it of its gold. In the end the
+canvas was covered, but with a sketch far
+less true and beautiful than the painter's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span>
+first happy vision. Even so of all our
+children few attain the perfection of our
+dreams. While we look, some influence
+comes upon them and they are changed,
+some breeze, born we know not where,
+stirs them to their heart of joy while we
+stand perplexed; innumerable laughter of
+leaves, a rushing and a shivering in quick
+answer to a mere breath, silence as swift
+when unperceived it dies away&mdash;these are
+their replies to our silent invocations. We
+cannot follow the swift course, but are
+quickened with a glad rejuvenescence, the
+true prize and guerdon of parentage.
+They may grow old or die, or bring us
+sorrow; it is enough that once they so
+lived and stirred a pride within us. Let
+Hedonist and idealist dispute, let one
+worship pleasure and another wait on the
+intangible joy, but in the fathering and
+mothering and the bringing up of young
+children, of the flesh, the mind, or the
+spirit, lies the natural happiness of men
+and women. It is a joy which outlasts
+disillusions; it rests surely upon achievement
+and deserts which lie ponderable in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>
+the archangel's scales. For it is certain
+that he who creates as best he knows best
+serves God, the world and himself, and
+what system of Ethics has conceived a more
+perfect rule?</p>
+
+<p>All young life is instinct with such a
+beauty and trustfulness, that though he
+himself may have no part or lot in its
+creation, and be dumb or awkward in its
+presence, a man will be the brighter for
+having passed, if but for a moment, out of
+the darkness of his own course into the
+radiance within its orbit. To the diffident
+this is an especial grace. For children by
+some deeper intuition understand us as
+their parents cannot do; and when all the
+world is cold will often smile upon us with
+happy upturned faces. It is one of my
+consolations that the little players in the
+parks come running to me rather than to
+others with their eternal question after
+the exact hour of day. For I reflect that
+though my face grows wrinkled and drawn
+with years, there must yet hover something
+about its ugly surface which tells of a good
+will within. There was a time when I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>
+found the children's question importunate,
+and drew out my watch ungraciously; but
+now I feel disappointment if during their
+hours of play I can walk my mile without
+answering one of these high-pitched
+inquiries.</p>
+
+<p>To have the confidence of children is
+indeed a thing of which a poor wanderer
+may be proud, a credential confirming his
+self-respect, and worthy one day to be
+presented at the gate of heaven. Once
+during one of my worst hours of desolation,
+when I was tramping across the fields, I
+found a little maid of seven picking primroses
+on the edge of an old orchard. For
+some time I stood watching, so charmed
+with the grace of her movements and the
+beauty of the spring sunlight on her golden
+mane, that I lost all consciousness of present
+trouble, and beyond her fairy form began
+to see vague visions of lost happiness returning.
+As I stood thus forgetful and looking
+absently before me, I suddenly felt a touch
+which recalled my scattered thoughts: she
+had come to me and put her hand in mine.
+I think in all my lonely life I never felt<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span>
+so swift a thankfulness as that which suffused
+me then: the memory of it is always
+with me, and now I never see a happy
+child engrossed in its little task of duty or
+pleasure without thinking to myself there
+is one of those who truly have power to
+remit sins. I will not repeat the fond things
+often written about children. Not all of
+them are like the infant angels of Bellini
+or Filippino Lippi or Carpaccio; some
+indeed are strident, pert, without charm
+or candour, not doves but little jays; but
+for the loveliness of those who have smiled
+upon me, whether rich or poor, whether
+wild or tended flowers, I shall ever hold
+the whole company dear.</p>
+
+<p>Whether I read or write, or go painfully
+upon difficult paths of thought, like many
+other men whom the world dismays, I win
+a larger tranquillity and a clearer vision
+from an increased simplicity of life. I
+know that to use the word asceticism of
+one's daily practice is to incur the judgment
+of all those whom the world calls
+good fellows, whose motto is live and let
+live, or any other aphorism of con<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span>venient
+and universal remission. To them
+asceticism is the deterrent saintliness which
+renounces all joy, and with a hard thin
+voice condemns the leanings of mankind
+to reasonable indulgence. The ill-favour
+drawn down by ecclesiastical exaggeration
+upon the good Greek word <ins title="askêsis">&#7940;&#963;&#954;&#951;&#963;&#953;&#962;</ins>, which
+means nothing more than the practice of
+fitness, has prejudiced men against all
+system of conduct bold enough to include
+it in their terminology.</p>
+
+<p>Kant's chapter on the Ascetic Exercise
+of Ethics is a fine defence of that training
+of the heart and mind which has no affinity
+with the morbid discipline of hair shirt
+and scourge. "The ascetic exercise of the
+monasteries," he says, "inspired by superstitious
+fear and the hypocritical disesteem
+of a man's own self, sets to work with self-reproaches,
+whimpering compunction and
+a torturing of the body. It is intended not
+to result in virtue but to make expiation
+for sins, and by self-imposed punishment
+the sinners expect to do penance, instead
+of ethically repenting." And again&mdash;"All
+ethical gymnastics consist therefore singly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>
+in subjugating the instincts and appetites
+of our physical system ... a gymnastic
+exercise rendering the will hardy and
+robust, which by the consciousness of
+regained freedom makes the heart glad."</p>
+
+<p>This is sound doctrine, neither ungodly
+nor inhuman, the word of a man in whose
+veins the warm blood yet flowed. Few
+pictures of venerable age please more than
+that of the old philosopher of Königsberg
+drawn for us by de Quincey in one of his
+miscellaneous Essays. There we see Immanuel
+Kant, leading his tranquil sane
+existence, giving his friends sober entertainment,
+talking brightly of mundane
+things, practising "the hilarity which goes
+hand in hand with virtue." For me the
+very eccentricities of his daily routine have
+a fascination, and I read them as a devout
+Catholic reads many a quaint passage in the
+<i>Acta Sanctorum</i>. How wise was his nightly
+habit, as he settled himself in bed before
+falling asleep, to asseverate with a sigh of
+thankfulness that no man living was more
+contented and healthier than he! Here is
+the true asceticism, the child's glad aban<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span>donment
+to nature maintained and grown
+articulate in philosophic age.</p>
+
+<p>To this beauty of plain life I cannot
+attain. But my own life is as far removed
+as may be from brilliant or luxurious
+pleasures, and I divide my time between
+the country and the town. This I do
+from obedience to reason rather than
+fashion; for while the country has my
+love, the city is more remedial to my
+peculiar pain. There the shy man may
+have what Lamb called the perfect and
+sympathetic solitude, as opposed to the
+"inhuman and cavern-haunting solitariness,"
+to which his infirmity inclines. There he
+and those who rub shoulders with him on
+the pavement can "enjoy each other's
+want of conversation." No creature with
+a heart can jostle daily with his kind, but
+he wins some consciousness of kindly feeling.
+The very annoyances and constraints of
+propinquity are in their own way disciplinary,
+and insistent, uncongenial persons, like
+glaring red buoys with clanging bells, serve
+at least to keep us in the fairway of navigation.
+And in a city there are voices of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>
+cheerful exhortation always echoing in the
+higher air above the roar and the trampling,
+which in the interludes of coarser sound,
+or by our removal into some quiet court
+or garden, may be heard repeating their
+stirring watchwords of endeavour. We are
+told that no word spoken ever dies,
+but goes reverberating through space for
+ever. It is my fancy that only evil words
+escape into the outer void, which eternally
+engulfs their profitless message, while words
+of hope and helpfulness are not thus
+lightly sundered from the world that needs
+them, but hover still near above us, descending
+with every lull of the tumult
+into those ears which are strained towards
+them. The laden air of towns carries not
+the rumour of the battle only, but by the
+presence of these fair echoes held within it,
+gives back to the soul more health than
+ever it drew from the body. With this
+thought I am often consoled as I go my
+way through gloom and clamour and unloveliness,
+finding a Providence in places
+which else seem abandoned in the outer
+desolation.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Nor is the vast city to be valued only for
+what it gives, but for its own wonderful
+self, an obvious point which need not be
+expanded into a tedious circle. The shy
+will naturally draw more advantage from
+so rich a field of contemplation than those
+who seldom walk alone. In London I
+often map out a course of wandering which
+in its varied stages shall remind me of the
+change in progress or decay of particular
+arts or industries or different quarters of
+the town. Reading their meaning in the
+light of history, I make bare walls speak to
+me with a personal voice. Let any one
+but acquaint himself with the styles of
+ecclesiastical or domestic architecture, or of
+monuments of the dead, or with the history
+of the thoroughfares he frequents, and he
+will be pleasantly constrained to reflection
+upon those who have gone before him. As
+he stands in the shadow of an ancient church
+he will think to himself: "By this very
+wall Chaucer may have stood." As he
+walks amid the reverberating ravines which
+are city streets he will say: "Here along
+green and silent paths the Roman legionary<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span>
+marched when Hadrian ruled the world."
+When once the faculty of observation has
+been awakened to a permanent alertness, the
+desire to be widely read in history of men
+and their arts will become irresistible; and
+through the knowledge gradually amassed
+it will be thought a sorry chance if any
+ramble of wider compass yield no vision
+which in comeliness or deformity tells its
+tale of changing fortune. To appreciate
+human work, and the conditions under
+which it is born, is to exult in abounding
+sympathy with this man's conquest
+over things poor in promise, or to condole
+with that man's failure to do the best that
+in him lay.</p>
+
+<p>As I walk by the strand of Thames, my
+fancy sees upon one flood the gay barge
+gliding upward to green fields, and the
+black hull bearing down the prisoner to
+the Traitors' Gate. If I go up Holborn,
+I remember that where this traffic now
+thunders John Gerard tended his Physic
+Garden when Elizabeth was queen. I know
+where Sarah Siddons lived; and where
+William Blake died; and my curious wan<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>derings
+are now so far extended, that when
+I turn to the great book of London I seldom
+find a tedious page. The places where
+people strove and suffered evoke before me
+the forms of men and women dead but
+unforgotten, and if I am alone I am not
+aware of loneliness.</p>
+
+<p>London is the central wonder, but wonderful
+also in spirit and suggestion are
+those old places which ring it round: these
+I often frequent at every season, and
+carry their portraits over my heart. Let
+a man once learn to know them, and his
+memory shall never starve; he will never
+forget the hour when first they yielded him
+up their secret. Many moments of intimate
+delight do I treasure in remembrance,
+moments when I was suddenly aware that all
+previous impressions were the poor gatherings
+of purblind eyes; but I will only tell you
+of one, which may suffice to show what
+riches lie ever open to those who roam in
+solitude.</p>
+
+<p>It was mid-April and the close of a
+cloudless day. I had been to the Observatory
+hill at Greenwich to see the sun set<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>
+over London, looking for such a transfiguration
+of the grey city as should reveal its
+line of warehouses lying along the horizon
+in a mist of splendour like the walls of
+the New Jerusalem. So I had seen it
+before, marvellous and refined in unearthly
+fire: but to-day, in a sadder mood, and
+hungering more deeply for the vision, I
+looked out to the west in vain. For the
+wind had set in from the east, and driven
+back upon the town a zone of iron-grey
+smoke, ragged along its upper edge like a
+great water blown to spray, but merging
+below with those gloomy and innumerable
+buildings. Upon this the sun, which all
+day had ridden in a clear air, was slowly
+falling, losing radiance with every minute,
+until as it approached that gloomy spray it
+was luminous no more, but a dull red orb
+whose light, like a flame withdrawn into
+the consumed heart of coals, glows for
+awhile beneath a gathering film of grey.
+In a few minutes it descended, as if sadly
+and of resolution, into the murky sea,
+where for a moment its red curves seemed
+to refine the smoke into translucency;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>
+but at last the dun waves gathered upon
+it dark and voluminous, drowning it so
+deeply that the clearer sky above was
+instantly robbed of the wonted after-glow.
+Some pale reflection there was in the upper
+heaven, ensuring a time of twilight, but
+no glory; and smitten with a congruous
+sadness, I went down to the river. But
+there, pacing to and fro as if upon a quarter-deck,
+with the water lapping upon the wall
+beneath, I lived one of the happy hours of
+life, redeemed from disappointment, and
+carried far into a magical world.</p>
+
+<p>The flood tide, which had turned for
+more than an hour, was now racing down
+wilful for the sea, though the breeze ruffling
+its surface seemed to thwart and stay its
+eager course. And on the surface, indeed,
+chafed and broken into innumerable ripples,
+the wind triumphed; but as one looked
+westwards towards the city, it was clear
+that the sullen strength of stream and
+tide had the mastery. For over the broad
+curving reach, lit like white unburnished
+silver with the reflection of the pallid sky,
+there glided forward a line of barges each<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>
+with every red sail set, and as silent as if
+they sallied from a besieged city. One by
+one they hung out their lights, the lamps
+swaying and casting yellow bars over the
+quivering water, until in perfect silence
+all passed down before me. Each in turn
+attaining the lower bend where the river
+sweeps northward, went about and stood
+for the Middlesex shore; and then for a
+moment the wind seemed to overcome the
+tide, for before the boat could win new
+way, lying almost broadside across the
+stream, the breeze held her motionless, like
+a tired bird on a windy day when it flies
+out from the shelter of the wood. It was
+but for a moment, and then the blunt
+bows glided forward towards the north
+bank, and another barge succeeded in the
+gathering gloom.</p>
+
+<p>And so it was until all were passed. The
+departing light drew the colours from the
+red sails and the silvery brightness from
+the river; all forms became outlined in
+black upon what uncertain light remained.
+Two men put off in a boat from an anchored
+ship; the mingled sound of their oars and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>
+voices came with subdued tone as if out of
+an infinite distance. Then the whole reach
+lay bare and silent for a while, and only the
+little waves lapping upon the stone steps
+played an accompaniment to my dream.</p>
+
+<p>The hour and the place compelled to
+reverie, and memory consenting to their
+evocative charm, I peopled the still scene
+with the forms of those who had swayed or
+shared the fortunes of this land; imperious
+Elizabeth and gentler Mary, the slight
+heroic figure with one sleeve pinned empty
+on the breast, and all those who, going down
+to their business in deep waters or returning
+therefrom, have saluted with melancholy
+or with joy these towers and this wooded
+hill. I thought of the lads playing beneath
+these trees, and so inbreathing the spirit
+of this place that for them there was no
+career but to follow the river down to
+ocean, and ocean himself in his circuit of
+the world. I thought of the veterans
+returned from that quest, old Argonauts
+of a later day, now clustering round the
+Hospital fires and perhaps recalling amid
+tales of havens and high seas the very<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>
+morning when they first dropped round
+the bend and passed into the new world
+beyond. For this Thames is such an avenue
+and entry into marvellous life that earth
+can show no greater rival, none more rich in
+dignity or in the multitude of its merchandise.
+And if the flood of that merchandise
+shall cease, and the stream once more go
+lonely to the sea or carry coracles, it cannot
+be again as if it had never borne great ships,
+or swung the Admiral's galley on its tide.</p>
+
+<p>It is good for an Englishman to stand
+here and listen to the brown waters lapping
+on the old walls and caulked timbers; to
+hear, as an under murmur, voices of Lechlade
+and Bablockhythe, for all intervening
+leagues of wood and meadow not altogether
+lost: before this persistence and continuity
+of youth to feel high thoughts stir within
+him and solemnize the nativity of new
+resolve. You cannot feel beneath your feet
+these old stones trodden by the great
+generations of your own blood and kindred,
+and not be moved to walk uprightly, to
+be approved by their shades as one not
+unworthy of such descent. For whether<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span>
+such worn stones be in the aisle of some
+great minster, or here, paving this narrow
+way for hurrying feet, the inspiration is as
+strong and the thankfulness not other.
+For this is a place of meridian, the navel
+of our land and empire; the wind searching
+its alleys has no usual voice, but as it were
+a deep and oceanic sound, according with
+old ballads and stories of the sea.</p>
+
+<p>I lingered leaning upon the rail until
+the tide had fallen from the wall, tracing
+along the narrow pebbled foreshore a clear
+marginal line of irregular contour, now
+sinuous, now straight, but palely luminous
+like a silver tone on some enamel of old
+Italy, a line drawn by a master draughtsman,
+in its inevitable and sure perfection wholly
+satisfying the eye. With the dark bank it
+vanished towards the great city, now marked
+in the upper sky by a hovering brightness
+of light escaped beyond the smoky rampart
+to tell the effort of innumerable lamps
+beneath, all pouring their blurred and vain
+effulgence to the disdainful stars.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, the city will give the shy man
+all the consolations of art, philosophy and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span>
+literature of which his education or experience
+may have made him worthy. He
+can see great pictures or read great books
+at little cost, and find in them the truest of
+friends in need. It is so obvious that a
+solitary of any culture will find relief with
+such companions, that here I take for
+granted his resort to their aid, and will
+only mention two resources from which
+the real recluse often draws less advantage
+than he might, I mean orchestral music
+and the drama. Any man of feeling who
+hears a great symphony ceases to be self-centred
+with the first movement; he goes
+out of himself, and rides upon waves of
+sound, exalted by this majesty of collective
+effort. No other music thrills his whole
+being like this, which sweeps him with all
+around into the very course of changing
+fates. In the confluence of dim hopes and
+passions which rise above the harmonies
+like smoke-wreaths riding the red flame,
+the soul glows interfluous with other souls
+and is elated with the inspiration of their
+presence. He bears arms exulting who
+never had comrades till now; his will is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>
+absorbed in confederate joy and human
+force unanimous. In this abandonment of
+the whole being, the diffident know their
+fellows near, and in the ecstasy of shared
+emotion learn the full measure of their
+humanity. Philosophers in all ages have
+known and taught the power of music in
+compelling ten thousand to the love of one,
+and so ennobling an infinite multitude in
+the glow of a common emotion. Sound
+was the first instinctive language, one for
+man and winds and waters; and music,
+which is the development of this primeval
+converse, leaving to grammars the expression
+of cold and abstract thought, has
+gathered about her in her mountain caverns
+the echoes of all sighs sad or passionate, of
+all inarticulate cries born of aspiration or
+desire, and there blended them into eternal
+harmonies which at her word flow forth
+and join the hearts of men.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, that swift responsiveness of feeling
+which music thus awakes is a gift beyond
+gems of Golconda; not youth's swift effusion
+cheaply given and soon forgotten, but the
+vibration of a heart stirred in sympathy with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span>
+some profound note of life, as the dyed
+pane stirs and quivers when the organ gives
+forth its deepest tones. Sentiment is a
+draught of old wine passing into the veins
+and enriching the blood, until in the
+generous glow all the privations and the
+stints of loneliness are forgotten. Pure
+emotion is like righteous anger, which may
+be lawfully indulged if the sun go not down
+upon it; and as he who shrinks from all
+fire of wrath lives but a vaporous life, so
+he who will never be moved is proud of a
+poor crustacean strength, like the limpet,
+winning darkness in exchange for dull
+stability. As for me, in the propitious
+hour when the heart longs for expansion,
+I give it honourable licence, and quicken
+its unfolding by spells of magical words.
+At such times I invoke the aid of passionate
+souls, not shrinking even from the vain,
+provided that they loved greatly and give
+great expression to their humanity. Such
+is that wild lover of George Sand whose
+<i>Souvenir</i>, for all its rhetoric, charms like an
+incantation. The ancients quenched the
+ashes of the pyre with red wine, as if the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>
+blood of the god-given vine could hearten
+the spirit that yet hovered near. Over my
+ashes let no wine be poured, but read me
+such verses high and valiant, that if my
+soul yet lingers undelivered from the earth's
+attraction it may be regenerated and set
+free into a braver life.</p>
+
+<p>And let the lonely man be an assiduous
+frequenter of the playhouse, for the drama
+will also open the world's heart to him, and
+that by a plainer and less elusive speech.
+Seated in the theatre among his kind, he
+knows a deeper pleasure than other men;
+for while to these the changing scene brings
+remembrance or anticipation of familiar
+things, to him it reveals whole vistas of
+life which, except in dreams, his feet may
+never tread. When the curtain is rung
+down, and he goes out into the street, for
+a while at least his existence is transformed.
+All those front doors aligned in their innumerable
+sequence, which in daylight or
+darkness he passes when he wanders alone,
+are now no longer barred against him;
+they open at the touch of his fancy, and
+he sees within the light of homeliness,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span>
+where father, mother, and child weave
+round warm firesides their close conspiracies
+of affection. At last he knows what
+is passing behind those bars; like an old
+family friend he takes his place by the fire
+and receives as of right the confidences
+which in his real lonely life never find
+their way to his ears. He helps the lovers
+to build their cloudy castles, he reasons
+away the parents' care, he goes up-stairs
+with a shaded candle to look in upon the
+children sleeping. Good women unlock the
+jewel-caskets which are their souls; happy
+maidens are sisterly with him; strong men
+grapple him to their hearts and call him
+friend. He that was vagabond has now
+innumerable homes, and of the faces that
+fleet by him out of doors there are always
+some which seem to give him greeting.</p>
+
+<p>These secret and unavowed alliances
+transfigure the unlovely streets, and light
+in the cavernous blank houses many a glowing
+and familiar hearth. As he goes on,
+careless of distance or direction, he is now
+inwardly busy with fresh and delightful
+dreams. He plights his troth and earth is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span>
+Eden; he imagines brilliant hours for the
+dream-children who go by his side,
+holding each of his hands. And if the
+visions change, and sorrow or sin pass in
+over a familiar threshold, what generous
+abnegation, what pity, what righteous wrath
+does he not know, until the plastic power
+of fancy moulds out of this poor recluse
+a man like other men. Amid these
+visionary sympathies time goes quickly by,
+and returning to his voiceless dwelling he
+has stored up such wealth of dreams that
+he can even endure the supreme test when
+the lonely man finds himself sitting in the
+wan light with no one near him to whom
+he is dear. Of the strength and peacefulness
+which bring him safely through that
+hour of desolation he owes much to the
+players, who have shot the drab texture of
+life with an infinity of bright and tender
+hues, so that he can bear to turn it in his
+hands and look upon it with a wistful
+pleasure. I say, then, let the shy man
+frequent the playhouse, and there facet and
+burnish his dulled mind until it reflects, if
+it may not touch, the many-sided world.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>For the discipline of sympathy, for the
+quickened sense of comradeship in work,
+for the very presence of that unloveliness
+which compels sympathy, I dwell more
+months in the town than in the country-side.
+But remembering what Nature did
+to save me, and owing her an endless debt
+of filial duty, I return to her in the summer
+days, and to make up for the long months
+of separation cling nearer to her than most
+of her truant sons. For communion with
+Nature, the ideal joy of country life, is not
+attained by the sportsman or the mere
+player of games, who think of their bodies
+chiefly, and use as a means to rude physical
+vigour the end ordained for the fine contentience
+of body, mind, and spirit. Again
+I will pass by the obvious and familiar
+resources of outdoor life, and speak only of
+such as men are unaccountably prone to
+neglect.</p>
+
+<p>There is a way of learning nature which
+in this wet land is mostly followed by
+tramps and vagrants; the way of sleeping
+beneath the stars. So far is this joy from
+the thoughts of most men, that even George<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>
+Borrow felt a strange uneasiness when for
+the first time the darkness descended upon
+him in the open country. I think we
+carry with us all our lives that fear of night
+with which nursery tales inspired our childhood;
+it reinforces the later more reasoned
+fear of boisterous weather, or of the men
+who walk in darkness because their works
+are evil. We shrink from night as a chill
+privation of daylight, as a gloom which
+we must traverse, but not inhabit; the
+distrust becomes with years instinctive and
+universal, and the nearest approach to
+friendly relation with night attained by
+most of us is a timid liking for the twilight
+hours. Yet as the sun rises alike upon the
+just and upon the unjust even so does he
+descend, and we put a slight upon Providence
+if we abandon to rogues and rakes
+that wonderful kingdom of the darkness
+of which by natural prerogative we are
+enfranchised. By never using our proper
+freedom, we give them prescriptive licence
+of usurpation, so that the hours in which
+the heavens are nearest to us are become
+the peculiar inheritance of thieves.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I confess that on the night when first I
+set out to do without a bedroom I too felt
+all the force of the traditional mistrust.
+I heard human whispers in the wind, and
+saw the shadows of walls and trees as forms
+of men lurking to spring out against me.
+The movements of roosting birds startled
+me as I passed; the sudden silences startled
+me more. And when I had spread my gear
+on the ground and settled down to rest,
+the sense of exposure on every side made
+sleep impossible; time after time I seemed
+to hear footsteps stealthily approaching;
+and there was a strangeness pervading
+everything which to my nervous fancy was
+simply provocative of apparitions. This
+lasted many nights; and whether I established
+myself on the edge of a copse, or in
+the open grass, or in a hammock beneath
+two trees, I continued a prey to the same
+uneasy wakefulness. But then, as if satisfied
+of good faith by such perseverance, the
+night began to wear a friendly aspect, the
+shadows gave up their ghosts, and the
+breezes became the expected messengers of
+slumber.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>When the lonely sleeper-out has grown
+familiar with the moonlight and the darkness,
+he is admitted into the number of
+earth's favoured sons; for lying like a child
+upon her bosom, he hears her heart beating
+in the silence, and wakes to see her smiling
+in her beauty like a queen apparelled.
+To no man slumber comes more gently
+than to him; and his uprising is as that
+of a child exulting in the cloudless day.
+Health and innocence return to him, and
+his one sorrow is that he has lived into
+maturity without continually partaking of
+these sane and natural delights. Remorse
+is his that for all these years he has feared
+the dews and shrunk from the bland night
+airs; and remembering the needless imprisonment
+of a hundred chambers, he
+mourns over the irrecoverable hours which
+would have rooted his life more deeply in
+tranquillity and strength. But the June
+sun is up, and the birds are singing: he
+strides with light step over the grass, watching
+the rabbits play in the glades, and in
+unison with a host of fellow-creatures
+singing a welcome to the dawn. When it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>
+is time for him to think of home and he
+comes once more beneath a doorway, he
+has a mind refreshed by the quietude of
+dim space, and a heart replenished with
+innocence and good-will. He who so
+sleeps hates no man, and will go upon the
+dullest way free from petulance or despair.
+The scent of the rich earth is in his
+nostrils, and the clearness of morning air
+has passed into his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>I have made my lair in many places since
+I first kept house with Nature. I have
+couched in heather by the pines of hills
+far above the Sussex Weald; I have lain
+in dry furrows or on the margin of a copse,
+or in the parks of the children of fortune,
+for whose welfare, in gratitude for their
+unconscious hospitality, I shall ever pray.
+But of all wild resting-places I have known,
+the openest are the most delightful. To
+see the whole sweep of the stars; to lie
+on the shorn ground free of all that overshadows
+or encompasses or confines; to
+breathe in the great gulf of air; to stretch
+unhindered limbs&mdash;this is an initiation into
+a new life, a pleasant memory in the long<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span>
+glooms of winter. Let nothing come between
+you and the stars, that they may
+look well upon your face, and haply repenting
+of some ancient unkindliness, draw you
+at this rebirth a new horoscope of blessing
+and fair fortune. And if slumber tarries
+when you lie in an open spot, you may
+consciously ride the great globe through
+space, and like the shepherd watching by
+his flock in the clear night while star rises
+after star, grow aware of the great earth
+rolling to the east beneath you.</p>
+
+<p>In these still hours of night or early
+dawn there steals upon the charmed mind
+an Orphic sense of worship and inexplicable
+joy. For here on bare uplands and wooded
+hills, where the starlight rains down through
+the silence, or the day, welling up over the
+rim of the downs, glides fresh from the lips
+of ocean, a calm river of light, here is the
+place of Dionysus, of him born from fire
+and dew, Zagreus the soul of clean souls
+and wild lives, his heart a-quiver with
+vague sadness drawn from all the worlds,
+Eleutherios, loosener of heart and lip, the
+regenerator, the absolver, the eternally mis<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span>understood,
+whose true followers are priests
+of impassioned pure life, whose wine is not
+juice of grapes but the clear air ambient
+upon the hills. Here when sleep is shamed
+away by expectant awe, the whole being
+grows one with all-environing life; personality
+glides into the stream of cosmic
+existence, lost and found a thousand times
+in the trance and ecstasy of dim divine
+feelings beyond the power of words inexpressible.
+It is miracle; it is religion;
+it is a feast of purification above pomps or
+mysteries, a cleansing ritual without victims
+and undefiled. In such hours, and in such
+hours alone, man and things are joined in
+a supreme utterance of life high and humble,
+transient and immortal, by which the
+fellowship of all existences within the
+universe is made real and significant to
+the initiate mind. For in the day fences
+are about us, roofs and towers impend
+above our heads, we are cribbed in streets
+and markets, the din of rhetoric or sordid
+bargaining fills our ears. Or if we withdraw
+into some still chamber, yet the walls
+built by hired hands offend, and the door<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span>posts
+of sapless timber; no high influence
+can penetrate to us save through the close
+court of memory, and compared with the
+breezy starlit meadows, how poor an avenue
+to the soul is that!</p>
+
+<p>And the exuberant sun of noon distracts,
+and the multitude of his beams is troublous,
+for what does sight avail if the things of
+the heart's desire are lost in immeasurable
+perplexities of light? For in the high day
+the quivering bright air is more opaque
+than the dim spaces of night, so tranquil
+and severe, or the glowing kingdoms of the
+morning. At the springing of the day the
+eyes open upon awakening flowers, giving
+filial heed to the marvellous earth which
+waits in patience for a human greeting.
+I like the passage in which Chaucer tells
+how in May-time his couch was spread in
+an arbour upon the margin of the grass,
+that he might wake to see the daisies unfold
+their petals. Sleeping thus, he also must
+have known those intervals of slumber
+when a sense of some impending wonder
+grows too strong for sleep, and all nature
+seems calling to high vision. Often I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span>
+have been thus awakened, not by noise or
+movement, but as it were by some strange
+prescience of beauty constraining me to
+rise and look. Once I was drawn some
+distance round the corner of a copse, and
+there, low in the sable-blue of the sky, in
+a rivalry of intense but dazzling light, the
+crescent moon hung splendid over against
+a great constellation which glittered like a
+carcanet of diamonds. They seemed to
+speak together as if in some scene or passage
+of celestial drama, nor did I know which
+was the diviner speech, the moon's unwavering
+effulgence or that leaping coruscation
+of the stars. Nothing stirred on the
+right hand or the left, but earth and air
+were hushed, as if before that colloquy all
+sound and motion were miraculously holden.
+Tall trees brown with densest shadows were
+massed upon one side, obscuring half the
+heaven, and lending by their contrasted
+gloom that sense of wizardry in natural
+things which enchants the clear summer
+nights when the air is still.</p>
+
+<p>This is but one among many visions of
+which the remembrance makes life worship<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span>ful;
+and it is pity that at the hour of
+their coming well-nigh all whom they should
+delight lie chambered within brick walls,
+lost in sleep or in the mazes of unprofitable
+thoughts. For these things in their rare
+appearances are more precious than an
+hour's slumber, were it dreamless as a
+child's, or all the watches of luxurious
+unrest. If another summer is given me
+I hope to take the road when July has
+come with balmy nights, and wander days
+at a stretch with all I need upon my
+shoulders. Then I shall know the real
+joy of vagrancy, caring little where night
+finds me, and quickening my steps for
+nothing and for no man. I shall linger in
+every glade or on every hill-top which
+calls to me to stay; I shall tell all the
+hedgerow flowers, and lean over the gates
+to watch the foals playing. The brooks
+shall be my washing-basins, and I shall
+quench hunger and thirst in the tiled
+kitchens of lonely farmsteads. If I hear
+the shriek of a train I shall smile when I
+think of its cooped and harried passengers,
+and plunge devious into some pathless wood,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span>
+in whose depths the only sounds are the tap
+of the woodpecker's bill or the measured
+axe-strokes of the woodman. I shall fling
+myself down to rest under what tree I will,
+and pulling from my pocket the book of
+my choice, I shall summon a wise and
+cheerful companion to my side as easily
+as ever oriental magician called a jinn
+to do him service. I shall once more be
+commensal with wild creatures, and wonder
+that solitude was ever a pain; I shall be
+healthily disdainful of the valetudinarian
+who lives to spoil either his body or his soul.</p>
+
+<p>These are the wanderings which henceforward
+will chiefly suffice to my need.
+For since I roamed my fill in other
+continents the gadfly may no longer sting
+me out of my tranquil haunts. In their
+youth lonely people suffer more than others
+from that restlessness which fills the mind
+with sudden distaste for the present scene,
+and a fierce longing to be somewhere far
+away. Others are preserved from it by
+the love of home; but we, in our poverty
+of attachment, listen more readily to the
+depreciating voice.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I remember how deep had always been
+my longing to look out upon the sea
+from some Greek island, and how one day,
+when this desire was granted, and I walked
+along hills set high above the blue Ægean,
+I was seized with an instant yearning to
+be instead upon Ranmore Common in
+Surrey. Yet at that moment a life's
+ambition was being fulfilled; I stood in
+a scene of incomparable beauty, gazing
+down on those deep azure waters whose
+voice is always to me as a lament for wandering
+Odysseus; the lower slopes were
+rich with olive trees, powdering with silver
+the tilled lands round a beautiful monastery
+lying there in its enchanted rest.
+Dark cypresses rose amid white walls of
+villages, by the contrast of their gloom
+making all bright colours glorious; away
+to the left, where the shore verged westward
+tracing inimitable curves between field
+and sea, lay slumbering a little white town
+with minarets and walled gardens and
+tiny haven&mdash;a very place for Argonauts;
+and yet my thoughts turned to the chalk
+downs of England and honeysuckle crown<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span>ing
+the unfruitful hollies. <i>Sed quia semper
+abest quod aves praesentia temnis</i>;&mdash;Such
+desire has distracted Roman minds; the
+perversity is very old; and perhaps only
+children find no disillusion in the accomplishment
+of a dream.</p>
+
+<p>For our feet have one country and our
+dreams another, and there is no constancy
+in us. It is not alone in the bartering of
+one earthly scene for its fellow that we
+suffer the sick thirst of change; but into
+the rarest hour of achieved ideal to which
+hope promised her supreme satisfaction,
+the same wayward longing will often find
+a way; as in a sacred place amid the purest
+and most exquisite meditations of the soul,
+there will suddenly flit inexplicable shadows
+of irreverence, with echoes of incongruous
+voices from the abandoned world.</p>
+
+<p>But now as the years pass and the penury
+of human love has made the home woods
+and fields more dear, I feel that this unrest
+is drawing to its end. For as the seasons
+pass over the uplands and the meadows,
+clothing them with new splendours between
+the seed-time and the harvest, no vision<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span>
+rises upon the memory dearer and more
+beneficent than theirs. As the lover's fancy
+dwells upon the image of his beloved in
+this or that environment, and thus or thus
+arrayed, so I see the woods and fields in the
+various glories of the year and know not in
+which garb I love them best. They have
+heard my laments, my confidences, all my
+broken resolves: they are bound to me by
+so pure and intimate an affection that all
+those grander wonders of the world should
+never draw me again from this allegiance.
+Not for the vision of Himalaya piercing the
+heaven, or the sunsets of Sienna, or the
+moonlight on the Taj Mahal, or for any
+other beauty or any wonder shall I weary
+of the cornfields framed in elms or the great
+horses turning in the furrow against the
+evening sky.</p>
+
+<p>For with the growth of years our desires
+wander less, and are mercifully contracted
+to the scope of our wearying powers. We
+haunt the same old places and want the
+same old things, dwelling amongst them
+with an increasing constancy of devotion.
+For we find that year by year the old<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span>
+places and things are not really the same;
+something has touched them in our absence;
+strange still agencies have intervened, long
+silences of dissolution and the ineluctable
+fate of change. And so that perfect sameness
+which we find unattainable takes on
+the quality of ideal and demands the
+grown man's devotion, as the change that
+is forbidden casts its resistless spell over the
+guarded and tethered child. The eyes of
+youth are on the far end of the vista, those
+of age upon the near; the old horse that
+has drawn the coulter through the clay is
+glad for the four hedges of the paddock
+which irk the growing colt's desire. When
+Richard Jefferies was asked why he walked
+the same lane day after day, at first he was
+at a loss for a reply; but gradually the
+reason became clear to him. It was because
+he had become aware of the iron law:
+<i>Nothing twice</i>: he wanted the same old
+and loved things not twice but endlessly;
+he was yearly more eager to be with them,
+and paint indelibly upon his memory their
+delicate quiet beauty, their soft and
+perishable charm.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>That is how I also feel, as with the
+return of summer I wander out into the
+old meadows and climb the familiar hills;
+I find myself hoping that nothing is changed,
+and am stirred with sweet anxieties of
+reminiscence. And surely within the enchanted
+boundaries of the counties where
+I ramble, there is variety which not the
+hundred eyes of Argus could exhaust.
+These fields and woodlands in high summer
+feast all the senses with a surfeit of delights.
+How good it is to exercise in all its range
+the fine mechanism of the body, suffering
+each part of it to indulge its own hunger
+after beauty; to feel the texture of petals,
+and draw the long grasses through the
+fingers; to breathe an air laden with the
+scent of blossoms, passing from uplands
+fragrant with bean-flowers into untilled
+regions odorous with pines; to hear the
+birds' chorus at sunrise and the distant
+sound of reaping; to see innumerable
+marvels; the belts of clover mantling
+wine-dark in the wind; the poppies in the
+standing corn, the carmine yew-stems on
+the downs; above you the soft grey clouds<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span>
+delicately floating; below you, as the day
+declines, some distant lonely water emerging
+in its glory to be the mirror and refuge
+of all heaven's light; to remember the
+gorse and broom and look forward to the
+royal purple of the heather&mdash;all this is a
+consummation of pure life, a high, sensuous
+pleasure penetrating to the inmost soul,
+and of such exceeding price that to disdain
+its offerings or to pass incurious before
+them, is to live in the blindness of the
+tribe of Genseric.</p>
+
+<p>In such wanderings the mind is filled
+with slow and seasonable thoughts, lasting
+as the trees and buildings of the country-side.
+Old deliberate contemplations, perceptions
+after long regard ingathered from
+abundant nature, theories leisurely compacted
+in sunshine or storm, to stand in
+the fields of memory, crowned with beauty
+by the indulgent years. So in the visible
+meadows stand the ancient barns, with roofs
+of umber tiles parcel-gilded with old gold of
+lichen, and crowning their seasoned timbers
+"as naturally as leaves"; restful structures
+of a quiet age, capacious of dim<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span>
+space, unvexed by the glare of a hundred
+summers.</p>
+
+<p>And if you ask what profit is here for
+one who must do battle in the loud world,
+study for a while the artifice and industrious
+policy of plants by which they attract to
+themselves the visitants they need or with
+most masterful defence repel the importunate
+advance, and you will return to
+the societies of men, even to their parliaments,
+enriched with arts of prudence
+beyond the practice of Machiavel. Examine
+the dog-rose upon the hedge, how
+by putting forth thorns it raises itself to
+the light and ranges irresistible along the
+leafy parapets; see how the flowers adapt
+their form and colour to the convenience
+of the bee or the predilections of the bird;
+consider the furze armed with spines against
+browsing muzzles, and be near when it casts
+its seed wide upon the earth; and then say
+if among states or governments there is a
+wiser economy or an intelligence more
+provident of its end. I myself have the
+conceit that if time, revoking my sentence
+of superannuation, should restore my lost<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span>
+years and add youth to the wisdom learned
+along the hedges, even I, a very profitless
+weed, should not again so uncivilly decay,
+but flower to another June and see my seed
+multiply around me.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps, if that might be, I should strive
+to learn thoroughly, and bring science to
+bear upon experience. But, as I am,
+classifications and dissections are repellent
+to my fancy. I cannot get to the hearts
+of flowers by any Linnæan approach, but
+go rather by the old animistic way, still
+honoured by Milton through his Genius
+of the Woods:</p>
+
+<div class="block">
+<div class="poem">
+"When evening gray doth rise I fetch my round,<br />
+Over the mount and all this hallowed ground,<br />
+And early, ere the breath of odorous morn<br />
+Awakes the slumbering leaves."<br />
+</div></div>
+
+<p>So I greet the blossoms of hill and upland
+and water-meadow, knowing them all by
+their country names, and sometimes fancying
+that they know me back: all that is
+lacking is the tutelary power to guard
+their growth and prolong their bright and
+fragrant lives. What fine old names they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span>
+have, great with the blended dignities of
+literary and rural lore; archangel, tormentil,
+rosa solis or sun-dew, horehound,
+Saracen's wound-wort, melilot or king's
+clover, pellitory of Spain! I cannot coldly
+divide so fine a company into bare genera
+and species, but imagine for them high
+genealogies and alliances by an imaginative
+method of my own: to me the lily and the
+onion shall never be connections.</p>
+
+<p>If I must read books on flowers, I take
+down such a one as Nicholas Culpeper's
+<i>Complete Herbal</i>, written from "my house
+in Spitalfields next the Red Lion, September
+5th, 1653." For here is a man who attempers
+science with the quaintest fancies
+after the manner of his generation, and
+delightfully misinterprets the real affinity of
+the flowers and the heavens. "He that
+would know the operation of the herbs
+must look up to the stars astrologically,"
+says this master; and so to him briony is
+"a furious martial plant," and brank ursine
+"an excellent plant under the dominion
+of the moon." Of rosemary he says, "the
+sun claims privilege in it, and it is under<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>
+the celestial ram," and of viper's bugloss,
+"it is a most gallant herb of the sun."
+The bay-tree rouses him to real eloquence,
+though not for Apollo's sake. "It is a
+tree of the sun and under the celestial sign
+of Leo, and resists witchcraft very potently,
+as also all the evils that old Saturn can do
+to the body of man; for neither witch
+nor devil, thunder nor lightning will hurt
+a man in the place where a bay-tree is."</p>
+
+<p>Reading in this old book of the ordinance
+and virtues of the familiar herbs, I escape
+from the severities of botanical science into
+a maze of queer fancies, well suited to those
+retrospective hours when we love best what
+we least believe. And by the pleasant
+suggestion of astrology I am led on to
+contemplate the starry heavens, which I
+do in the ancient pastoral way, peopling
+them with mythical forms and connecting
+them with the seasonable changes of rustic
+toil. I forget for the moment all the
+discoveries of Copernicus and Kepler, and
+see eye to eye with Cleostratus of Tenedos
+who nightly watched the stars from the
+sacred slopes of Ida.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Much as the companionships of nature
+have meant for me, I would not have any
+man content himself with these alone. It
+is not right to live the slave of Pales, or
+become the rhapsode of docks and nettles.
+To be all for the lower life, were it the
+fairest, is derogation; and Har and Heva
+before they may enter into their kingdom
+of the flowers must first be fallen spirits.
+But continually in the interludes of human
+endeavour to rebathe the mind at these
+clear wells does indeed exceedingly purify
+and strengthen against the returning and
+imminent encounter. Those long retreats
+at Walden may not often be repeated, for
+man is either risen too high or too far
+fallen to live well in the sole company of
+animals and flowers. What sociologists call
+the consciousness of kind is as vital to man
+as the consciousness of self; and to pine
+for adoption into an alien kind is vain on
+this side transmigration.</p>
+
+<p>Not seldom my wanderings in town and
+country lead me to quiet churchyards, or
+to those vast cemeteries where the living
+have established the dead in avenues and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span>
+streets of tombs after their drear suburban
+fashion. Solitude has ever persuaded to
+the contemplation of death, and in these
+silent places I feel no shock of sadness but
+am rather possessed by a familiar spirit of
+peace. As I wander from path to path,
+my fancy is not lamed by mournful thoughts,
+but finds suggestion amid the poor laconic
+histories by which these headstones appeal
+to him that passes by.</p>
+
+<p>It is with most men a natural desire to
+take their last rest in some green God's
+acre, far from the smoke and turmoil of
+towns, lying in a fair space amid a small
+company, where there is a wide prospect
+of tilled lands, and the reapers cut the
+swathes against the very churchyard wall.
+And this is my most usual aspiration; yet
+there are times when I would not shrink
+in thought from the Valley of Ezekiel,
+and would be content to be written a mere
+number in some city of the dead, where
+at last after all the loneliness of life I should
+no longer be kept apart, but be gathered
+to my fellows where they lie in their
+thousands, and be received a member of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span>
+their society. And though I well know
+that it matters not a cummin-seed whether
+my bones are washed to and fro on the
+bed of the sea or my ashes cast to the
+winds of heaven, yet I humour this
+fancy, and find a quiet pleasure in the
+thought that death at least may end this
+isolation.</p>
+
+<p>And what if the propinquity of these
+poor remains be gage and promise of a
+sympathy of souls unveiled and unhidden
+by false semblances of the body? Then
+should death indeed be the crown of a long
+desire and give me at the last the fellowship
+into which life denied initiation.
+Surely, as Coleridge dreamed, there is a
+sex in souls, which, disengaged from the
+coarse companionship of the flesh, shall see
+into each other's crystal deeps. Thence, in
+new life, when the last recondite secret is
+withholden no longer, there shall come forth
+those qualities and powers that ennobled
+man and woman in mortality; they shall
+come forth in all their several strength and
+beauty, divinely animate, and reflecting
+upon each other bright rays and soft<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span>
+colours invisible upon these misty oceans
+of our navigation.</p>
+
+<p>It is not terrible to think, at times, on
+death, for that <i>danse macabre</i> which troubled
+the fancy of our forefathers is now danced
+out, and the silent figure that knocks at
+every door comes not as a grinning skeleton
+but as one of more gentle countenance
+than any art can express. The natural
+change, which to William Blake was but
+the passing out of one room into another, is
+well personified in the merciful figure with
+the kind eyes, coming at the sounded hour
+to lead away into quietness. My solitude
+has taught me to know well those noble
+efforts which art has made to lift from our
+bowed backs the burden of the fear of death:
+I like to look upon that youthful Thanatos
+carved upon a column from the temple of
+the Ephesian Diana, and every year the red
+leaves of autumn persuade my steps to that
+village rich in elms where lived one who
+also saw death so, and laboured to draw the
+frightened eyes of men from the hour-glass
+and the skull to the gracious vision of the
+deliverer and friend. There hands which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span>
+were dear to him have raised a place of
+leave-taking upon a green slope, a house
+of farewell set upon the shore to receive
+the last pledges from the living to the
+absolved and unburdened dead.</p>
+
+<p>When first I saw Compton it was a
+cloudless noon in August, the day of days
+in which to come alone into this silent
+place. Out of the fiery heat beaten from
+wall and path like a blinding spray of light,
+it is a passage into a dimness of cool space,
+an air glaucous as the shade of olives.
+There from the circuit of a dome look
+down kind faces of immortal youth, in
+form and habit too tranquil for our life,
+but made homely to us by the mercy in
+their eyes, and some quality of the white
+soft hands which draws all weariness and
+all pain towards them. To me it was as
+though some furious struggle in the waves
+were over, and swooning out of life I had
+awakened upon a floor of translucent ocean,
+where, in a gracious and tempered light,
+beings of a compassion too intense for earth,
+each with a gesture that was not yet a
+touch, were charming all the bruises of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span>
+lost battle away. Surely this is true vision
+of things to come, and to such mercy we
+shall awaken. It cannot be that when the
+eyes reopen they shall see the forms of
+dark apparitors, or that the ears shall hear
+Æacus and Rhadamanthys speaking in dim
+halls their cold, irrevocable dooms. No,
+but there shall be a pause and respite upon
+the way from one to another life, and none
+may be conceived more grateful than this
+rest, as it were a sojourn beneath waters
+of Eunoë, where a flood of dear memories
+foreboding good shall absolve us from the
+mortal sin of fear.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>Turning back over these pages, I am
+conscious that I have failed to give real
+experiences their proper life. Describing
+solitude I have been dull; I have fixed
+the rushing flames of emotion in poor
+flamboyant lines. I have written far more
+than any reader but yourself will have cared
+to follow; but now at any rate the confession
+is over, and in the future I shall
+work, and use my sight for a worthier end
+than introspection. It has been said that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span>
+the tale of any life is interesting if sincerely
+told; and it may be that the most ordinary
+lives have the advantage, because it is the
+common experience which touches most
+hearts. For the greater part mine has been
+a common life, unglorified by hazards in
+the field, or bright fulfilment of ambition;
+it had been better for its peace
+if it might wholly have kept the comfortable,
+usual way.</p>
+
+<p>I sometimes wonder whether the printing
+of these pages will reveal to me any
+kinsmen in affliction, for such there must
+be going westward alone, and I wish that
+for a moment we might foregather as we
+pass, to compare the marvels of our isolation.
+Then perhaps I might be urged to
+higher effort, hearing stories more pitiful
+than mine, tales of silent courage under
+ban of excommunion to shame me from the
+very thought of despair. Poets have metaphorically
+given colours to souls; mine, I feel,
+is only grey, the common hue of shadows;
+but it was steeped in gloom by a veritable
+pain and evils really undergone. And as
+I reflect upon what I have written, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span>
+try to imagine it read by some brisk person
+utterly content with life, I can well understand
+that the whole thing would appear
+to him incredible, too preposterously strange
+for belief, a rigmarole of sick fancies beyond
+the power of hellebore. So be it: I expect
+small comprehension and no mercy, for
+indeed I have written caring little for such
+consequence, yielding to that human thirst
+for utterance which only confession can
+slake; as one eases pain by a moan though
+there are none to hear it. It is not
+altogether a grateful task. For hardly,
+and then only in a fortunate hour, to one
+whose years and feelings have been interwoven
+with his own, will even a healthy
+man tell the tale of his hidden emotion;
+and mine is the deeper reticence of a
+habit which has ever held closely to
+the recipe of fernseed. To entrust a
+confidence to one of unproven sympathy,
+is to risk a profitless embarrassment. It
+has been most truly said that both parties
+to such impulsive avowals, whenever they
+afterwards meet, must feel a constraint as
+of confederacy in misdemeanour.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I have hope that though I came late to
+the steady labour of the vineyard, I may
+yet earn my wage and begin the new day
+with the rest. Like Joseph Poorgrass I
+can now almost regard my diffidence as
+an interesting study, and agree with the
+rustic man of calamities that destiny might
+have made things even worse. Certainly
+the pain grows less fierce; I can go more
+readily among my fellows for all but social
+ends. For those who live much apart learn
+at last to see men not as individuals but
+in groups: to them it is the type which
+counts, the <i>forma specifica per formam individualem
+translucens</i>, of which the scholastic
+jargon speaks. Those with whom I
+come in casual contact appear to me now
+in a vague, diffused light like the atmosphere
+of some other world. Dwelling upon none
+with the eyes of intimacy, and passing
+swiftly from this to that, I find each but
+the harmless variant of a species; if I
+lingered or came too near, doubtless old
+apprehensions would oppress me still. It is a
+disadvantage of this outlook that the fascination
+of detail is lost, and that I have less sense<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span>
+for the personal in life. But if I grow old I
+shall regain the interest in particular things
+and persons with which age is consoled
+amid many miseries; for while youth grows
+earnest over some riddle of high art or the
+occultation of Aldebaran, age is happily
+absorbed in the arrangement of a room or
+discussing the destinies of a single household.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, though uncongenial to my
+kind as entering little into their pleasures,
+I like to be near them in their grief or
+happiness, standing unnoticed in the wind
+of their fortune's wheel. At least I am
+not soured or malevolent, and when there
+is dancing toward, I am in the crowd upon
+the margin of the green. I have abandoned
+social obligations because I am unfitted to
+perform them well, and society high and
+low exists by their cheerful fulfilment.
+But I no longer rail at social law or decline
+to see anything but evil in conventions
+devised by the wisdom and refinement of
+centuries. If I refuse invitations and leave
+calls unpaid, it is because I am socially
+bankrupt: were I solvent I should redeem
+all debts.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I decline therefore to denounce Chesterfield
+and deify Thoreau: there was exaggeration
+in both men, and though my
+sympathies are rather with the recluse of
+Walden pond, it is quite probable that
+Chesterfield was the more useful of the
+two. I am a bad player, I have not
+the high spirits or the conversational skill
+which each should contribute to the social
+game. And in almost any sport the incompetent
+confer a benefit by standing out:
+at least, that is the opinion which I hear
+the average player express. If I lived
+in the backwoods where any guest is
+welcome, it might be my duty to act
+differently. But my ways are cast in
+places where there is no need for social
+press-gangs, and the highways and hedges
+are left unsearched. If therefore by
+abstention I gain a qualified peace for
+myself, and confer positive benefit on
+others, I may go my way without serious
+reproach.</p>
+
+<p>And I did wisely not to marry, for I
+should have clung too closely to my study
+for the happiness of any woman. I once<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span>
+saw an advertisement in the newspaper
+inserted by a discontented young wife whose
+husband was a recluse and would not take
+her out of evenings. She wanted to communicate
+with congenial people, and, like
+a desperate sailor marooned, was driven to
+wave her signal in the sight of the casual
+eye. This frank confession of abandonment
+made a profound impression upon
+me. I thought to myself, "Master recluse,
+you are a pilferer and have filched a life.
+I am yet more solitary in my estate, and
+if I followed your example, should be
+guilty of a greater wrong." There are,
+indeed, hours when I feel embittered at
+the thought that for one innocent defect
+a whole life should be amerced of joy; the
+finality of loss appals: all is so irrevocable;
+<i>le vase est imbibé, l'étoffe a pris son
+pli</i>. Avoided not without cause by those
+who were my natural associates, I grow
+impenetrable of access, and even in my
+own family unfamiliar. The resentment
+that welled up in the man who told the
+story of Henry Ryecroft obtains the mastery,
+and I feel one in spirit with that lonely<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span>
+analyst of disillusions. Sometimes a worse
+darkness gathers round, till I long for one
+of those intense and all-absorbing creeds
+which somehow seem to tend the brightest
+hearth-fires which earth knows: for philosophy,
+though it invented the void, never
+built a little Gidding.</p>
+
+<p>It is then that I feel like the suppliant
+of the old Babylonian prayer, "one whose
+kin are afar off, whose city is distant," and
+all that appears before my sight is one
+scroll of wrongs which this evil heritage
+has inflicted upon me. It has made my
+best years rich in misery; it has cut me
+off from marriage; it has compelled me,
+one hating vain complaint, to live querulously
+in the optative mood. Neither
+poverty nor sickness could chastise more
+heavily; for poverty is strong in numbers
+and sickness rich in sympathy, but diffidence
+reaps laughter and is alone. When
+such thoughts win dominion over the mind
+I could envy what sufferer you will his
+most awful punishment. For in his agony
+be sure there is movement and action;
+his limbs are torn, yet he is dragged on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span>ward:
+by his very writhing in the bonds
+he confesses his life. But I lie in some
+dead waste where nothing moves and all
+is mist without horizon, lost in an abhorred
+blankness of dismay to which no positive
+suffering may be likened. Thither comes
+no fierce provocation to quicken into
+Promethean scorn; life lies whelmed in
+blackness unlit by flashes of defiance or
+the cold splendour of disdain.</p>
+
+<p>Empedocles once described his dream of
+retribution for the last unutterable offence.
+For thrice ten thousand years the sinner
+roams estranged from bliss, taking all
+mortal shapes, wearing with tired feet all
+the sad ways of life. Æther sweeps him
+out to Ocean, Ocean casts him naked on
+the shores of Earth, Earth hurls him upward
+to the flames of Helios, and he,
+relentless, spurns the victim back to Æther,
+that the dread cycle may begin anew.
+But to be for ever driven in this majestic
+whirl of change, to receive the chastisement
+of all elements and survive unbroken for
+a new revolution of the wheel, this is but
+an assurance of the very pride of life, it is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span>
+the charter of an invincible manhood. The
+doom which in truth befits the unutterable
+sin is rather the blank pain without accident
+or period, without point or salience to
+draw from stunned nature her last energies
+of resentment. It is well for me that this
+misery is short-lived, and that either by
+thinking on that ideal love I know the
+miracle of the twenty-ninth sonnet, or,
+struggling with instant effort out of the
+toils, try to see myself as I appear to
+others, one who should scorn to sit in thirst
+when there are wells yet for the seeking.</p>
+
+<p>It is a strange life to lead in this pleasureful
+world; and if when it is over I were
+condemned to live again, coming like Er
+the Armenian to that meadow where the
+lots are thrown down for each to choose
+his own, I am already decided what character
+I should elect to play. I should
+neither cast myself for a protagonist's part
+nor again for that of a dumb actor in those
+backgrounds I know too well; but just for
+a plain manly character, strong to face all
+fortunes and rich in troops of friends.
+There should be no more evasion or dreary<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span>
+wrestling of mind with body; but life
+should move to a restrained harmony, and
+no elusive wind should carry half the
+music away.</p>
+
+<p>As for what remains of this present
+dispensation, I shall know how to endure,
+trusting that the years may fade finely,
+like the figures in an old tapestry, and that
+the end may come to me as to the old
+gentleman in Hans Christian Andersen's
+story of the Old House. And I have this
+advantage over other men, that while they
+have the whole cornucopia to lose, I can
+but be deprived of the dregs in its pointed
+end. For in what can there be further
+punishment? On others, men of happy
+pasts, dismay may fall as the ways are
+darkened before them. But surely I shall
+be of good cheer as I come into the land
+of the fierce old robber Age; for, stripped
+long since by a more subtle and insatiate
+despoiler, I shall possess nothing of worth
+to draw his covetousness upon me. So
+many joys did my very youth renounce;
+so many pleasures the Harpies swept from
+my place at the spread board of life; such<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span>
+gags and fetters held me while others
+danced and sang, that I was the sad familiar
+of evil fortune before my companions were
+acquainted with her name. That leaden
+weight which brings others low, by a nice
+adjustment of the scales shall raise me for
+the first time to their equality. And then,
+as one experienced in bereavements, of
+themselves they may seek my company;
+and I, so long the useless and estranged,
+may become at the close their helpful
+counsellor.</p>
+
+<p>If only that might be; if only upon the
+verge of night I might redeem by usefulness
+my lost unserviceable day. Then this grey
+life, so long sole and intrinsical to itself,
+should glow at last with some reflection of
+the sunset; once more I should know
+young ardours imagined lost and devotions
+miraculously born again.</p>
+
+<p>You will still encounter me now and
+then, moving absently through the crowd,
+or wandering in some green place, as in
+the garden of the Luxembourg Vauvenargues
+used to meet the wounded of the
+great battle, keeping apart in the narrower<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span>
+walks, and leaving the broad central ways
+for lighter feet than theirs. He often
+longed to have speech with them; but
+always they turned away, with the proud
+self-sufficiency of the disillusioned. Perhaps
+if he had succeeded he would have
+found that to some of them life had its
+consolations not unlike mine, and that they
+could still regard it as something more than
+a friendly process of detachment. But it
+is not our habit to expand; we are ever
+held back by the occult pride which the
+same soldier-philosopher has assigned to
+one of his imaginary characters, "cette
+fierté tendre d'une âme timide, qui ne
+veut avouer ni sa défaite, ni ses espérances,
+ni la vanité de ses v&oelig;ux."</p>
+<div class="minispace">&nbsp;</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Apologia Diffidentis, by W. Compton Leith
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK APOLOGIA DIFFIDENTIS ***
+
+***** This file should be named 27795-h.htm or 27795-h.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/2/7/7/9/27795/
+
+Produced by Meredith Bach and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+
+</pre>
+
+</body>
+</html>
diff --git a/27795-h/images/i001.png b/27795-h/images/i001.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..be36717
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-h/images/i001.png
diff --git a/27795-h/images/i_booklist.png b/27795-h/images/i_booklist.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..419711a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-h/images/i_booklist.png
diff --git a/27795-h/images/i_dedication.png b/27795-h/images/i_dedication.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..34142fa
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-h/images/i_dedication.png
diff --git a/27795-h/images/ititle.png b/27795-h/images/ititle.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d44cad4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-h/images/ititle.png
diff --git a/27795-h/images/ititle2.jpg b/27795-h/images/ititle2.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f51c6e1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-h/images/ititle2.jpg
diff --git a/27795-page-images/f0001-image1.png b/27795-page-images/f0001-image1.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..70636d1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/f0001-image1.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/f0001.png b/27795-page-images/f0001.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..85d5407
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/f0001.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/f0002-image1.png b/27795-page-images/f0002-image1.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c4d4d69
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/f0002-image1.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/f0003-image1.jpg b/27795-page-images/f0003-image1.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8de7222
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/f0003-image1.jpg
diff --git a/27795-page-images/f0004.png b/27795-page-images/f0004.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ee8dd85
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/f0004.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/f0005-image1.png b/27795-page-images/f0005-image1.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..258b71c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/f0005-image1.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/f0005.png b/27795-page-images/f0005.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4ac2fd5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/f0005.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0001-image1.png b/27795-page-images/p0001-image1.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..529995a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0001-image1.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0001.png b/27795-page-images/p0001.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..89e67c0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0001.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0002.png b/27795-page-images/p0002.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b143865
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0002.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0003.png b/27795-page-images/p0003.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9dfe79e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0003.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0004.png b/27795-page-images/p0004.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..15e4e9c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0004.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0005.png b/27795-page-images/p0005.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c87d202
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0005.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0006.png b/27795-page-images/p0006.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f0d53b0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0006.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0007.png b/27795-page-images/p0007.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4ee6667
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0007.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0008.png b/27795-page-images/p0008.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..baaeafd
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0008.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0009.png b/27795-page-images/p0009.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..42c6de8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0009.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0010.png b/27795-page-images/p0010.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..94da553
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0010.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0011.png b/27795-page-images/p0011.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..cf0f105
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0011.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0012.png b/27795-page-images/p0012.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..452d22a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0012.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0013.png b/27795-page-images/p0013.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4eec93c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0013.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0014.png b/27795-page-images/p0014.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1a74ed1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0014.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0015.png b/27795-page-images/p0015.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..cd7fba7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0015.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0016.png b/27795-page-images/p0016.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f3912ed
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0016.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0017.png b/27795-page-images/p0017.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8d1a9e5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0017.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0018.png b/27795-page-images/p0018.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a1d9212
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0018.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0019.png b/27795-page-images/p0019.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2c0f9a2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0019.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0020.png b/27795-page-images/p0020.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b189910
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0020.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0021.png b/27795-page-images/p0021.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ebe6dca
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0021.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0022.png b/27795-page-images/p0022.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..808ddac
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0022.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0023.png b/27795-page-images/p0023.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c95cb03
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0023.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0024.png b/27795-page-images/p0024.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d13d7d2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0024.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0025.png b/27795-page-images/p0025.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..370a8d0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0025.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0026.png b/27795-page-images/p0026.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..292ad0b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0026.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0027.png b/27795-page-images/p0027.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..422b28f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0027.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0028.png b/27795-page-images/p0028.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e663f89
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0028.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0029.png b/27795-page-images/p0029.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..fb48e41
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0029.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0030.png b/27795-page-images/p0030.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..398d498
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0030.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0031.png b/27795-page-images/p0031.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..629fe28
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0031.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0032.png b/27795-page-images/p0032.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2e09041
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0032.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0033.png b/27795-page-images/p0033.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..24f7d3e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0033.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0034.png b/27795-page-images/p0034.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..feb51b0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0034.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0035.png b/27795-page-images/p0035.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8af6cb7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0035.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0036.png b/27795-page-images/p0036.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..809db16
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0036.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0037.png b/27795-page-images/p0037.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..475f47a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0037.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0038.png b/27795-page-images/p0038.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..351cecc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0038.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0039.png b/27795-page-images/p0039.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..fc7e5a7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0039.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0040.png b/27795-page-images/p0040.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..48540cb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0040.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0041.png b/27795-page-images/p0041.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7dc630b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0041.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0042.png b/27795-page-images/p0042.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..cd9a5b5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0042.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0043.png b/27795-page-images/p0043.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c40a210
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0043.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0044.png b/27795-page-images/p0044.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..261f604
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0044.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0045.png b/27795-page-images/p0045.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5338600
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0045.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0046.png b/27795-page-images/p0046.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a46fd25
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0046.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0047.png b/27795-page-images/p0047.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..66f59b3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0047.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0048.png b/27795-page-images/p0048.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..fc6608e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0048.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0049.png b/27795-page-images/p0049.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..df39f07
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0049.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0050.png b/27795-page-images/p0050.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..26a5c7f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0050.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0051.png b/27795-page-images/p0051.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ecf5738
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0051.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0052.png b/27795-page-images/p0052.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..fa08115
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0052.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0053.png b/27795-page-images/p0053.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9f3bf33
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0053.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0054.png b/27795-page-images/p0054.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..fb304fc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0054.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0055.png b/27795-page-images/p0055.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..fbc69bc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0055.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0056.png b/27795-page-images/p0056.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..21495d6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0056.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0057.png b/27795-page-images/p0057.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6ca59bb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0057.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0058.png b/27795-page-images/p0058.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..fd0f7de
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0058.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0059.png b/27795-page-images/p0059.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e2b29f7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0059.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0060.png b/27795-page-images/p0060.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ca7aacc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0060.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0061.png b/27795-page-images/p0061.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a2a3921
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0061.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0062.png b/27795-page-images/p0062.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7cc9b8e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0062.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0063.png b/27795-page-images/p0063.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a6044fd
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0063.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0064.png b/27795-page-images/p0064.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c0a7f4c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0064.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0065.png b/27795-page-images/p0065.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a8814be
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0065.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0066.png b/27795-page-images/p0066.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1487568
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0066.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0067.png b/27795-page-images/p0067.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..587e6d6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0067.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0068.png b/27795-page-images/p0068.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..89d1b97
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0068.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0069.png b/27795-page-images/p0069.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5fac903
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0069.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0070.png b/27795-page-images/p0070.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ffacae5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0070.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0071.png b/27795-page-images/p0071.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..bab2a09
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0071.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0072.png b/27795-page-images/p0072.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8c073b2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0072.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0073.png b/27795-page-images/p0073.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f3f220c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0073.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0074.png b/27795-page-images/p0074.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..549b61d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0074.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0075.png b/27795-page-images/p0075.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..107b5dd
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0075.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0076.png b/27795-page-images/p0076.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..805dd16
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0076.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0077.png b/27795-page-images/p0077.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a4e246c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0077.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0078.png b/27795-page-images/p0078.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2b0baca
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0078.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0079.png b/27795-page-images/p0079.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..50b1df3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0079.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0080.png b/27795-page-images/p0080.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5c819b3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0080.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0081.png b/27795-page-images/p0081.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4a100c7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0081.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0082.png b/27795-page-images/p0082.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b4f656b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0082.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0083.png b/27795-page-images/p0083.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..006f5b5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0083.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0084.png b/27795-page-images/p0084.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..40e542f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0084.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0085.png b/27795-page-images/p0085.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1fab7e4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0085.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0086.png b/27795-page-images/p0086.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..353d45c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0086.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0087.png b/27795-page-images/p0087.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..654c28d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0087.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0088.png b/27795-page-images/p0088.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f72e662
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0088.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0089.png b/27795-page-images/p0089.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..25b03e7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0089.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0090.png b/27795-page-images/p0090.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..96eaf34
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0090.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0091.png b/27795-page-images/p0091.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8cc3ae3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0091.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0092.png b/27795-page-images/p0092.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..906b723
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0092.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0093.png b/27795-page-images/p0093.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7f420ad
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0093.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0094.png b/27795-page-images/p0094.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4ed3f18
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0094.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0095.png b/27795-page-images/p0095.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5e3368d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0095.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0096.png b/27795-page-images/p0096.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..80013fc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0096.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0097.png b/27795-page-images/p0097.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5136c9a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0097.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0098.png b/27795-page-images/p0098.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9b120f2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0098.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0099.png b/27795-page-images/p0099.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7d148f9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0099.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0100.png b/27795-page-images/p0100.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3e6df14
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0100.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0101.png b/27795-page-images/p0101.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ff10443
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0101.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0102.png b/27795-page-images/p0102.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d7fe009
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0102.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0103.png b/27795-page-images/p0103.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a6599a2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0103.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0104.png b/27795-page-images/p0104.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..08f8191
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0104.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0105.png b/27795-page-images/p0105.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7b35315
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0105.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0106.png b/27795-page-images/p0106.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4cacaf6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0106.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0107.png b/27795-page-images/p0107.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..70df1ad
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0107.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0108.png b/27795-page-images/p0108.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..674df75
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0108.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0109.png b/27795-page-images/p0109.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a9255f8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0109.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0110.png b/27795-page-images/p0110.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7fc3091
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0110.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0111.png b/27795-page-images/p0111.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6bb0962
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0111.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0112.png b/27795-page-images/p0112.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d839182
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0112.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0113.png b/27795-page-images/p0113.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b304d8e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0113.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0114.png b/27795-page-images/p0114.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..35e0b4c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0114.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0115.png b/27795-page-images/p0115.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4c79d71
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0115.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0116.png b/27795-page-images/p0116.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..120695d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0116.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0117.png b/27795-page-images/p0117.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5367800
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0117.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0118.png b/27795-page-images/p0118.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a17b6d8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0118.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0119.png b/27795-page-images/p0119.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1fdaf12
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0119.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0120.png b/27795-page-images/p0120.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..838d60b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0120.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0121.png b/27795-page-images/p0121.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6c1fdc6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0121.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0122.png b/27795-page-images/p0122.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..aa53c26
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0122.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0123.png b/27795-page-images/p0123.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..aa5c0a8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0123.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0124.png b/27795-page-images/p0124.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e93cdff
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0124.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0125.png b/27795-page-images/p0125.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7d8d1e4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0125.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0126.png b/27795-page-images/p0126.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d968133
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0126.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0127.png b/27795-page-images/p0127.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..362449c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0127.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0128.png b/27795-page-images/p0128.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..dd6c234
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0128.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0129.png b/27795-page-images/p0129.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1f4a47e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0129.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0130.png b/27795-page-images/p0130.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..36a3c86
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0130.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0131.png b/27795-page-images/p0131.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e624bf1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0131.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0132.png b/27795-page-images/p0132.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..799e637
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0132.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0133.png b/27795-page-images/p0133.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..72f7407
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0133.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0134.png b/27795-page-images/p0134.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..33d1ffb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0134.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0135.png b/27795-page-images/p0135.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8698631
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0135.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0136.png b/27795-page-images/p0136.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b70ee3c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0136.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0137.png b/27795-page-images/p0137.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..cc65171
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0137.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0138.png b/27795-page-images/p0138.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6ac4957
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0138.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0139.png b/27795-page-images/p0139.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f77ec1a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0139.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0140.png b/27795-page-images/p0140.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2d6f6fb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0140.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0141.png b/27795-page-images/p0141.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0f93853
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0141.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0142.png b/27795-page-images/p0142.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8cdf4ac
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0142.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0143.png b/27795-page-images/p0143.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b5a3092
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0143.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0144.png b/27795-page-images/p0144.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2e0a0a5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0144.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0145.png b/27795-page-images/p0145.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5040ed1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0145.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0146.png b/27795-page-images/p0146.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8117431
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0146.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0147.png b/27795-page-images/p0147.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..73beba7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0147.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0148.png b/27795-page-images/p0148.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b8f8307
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0148.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0149.png b/27795-page-images/p0149.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..af3c1b8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0149.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0150.png b/27795-page-images/p0150.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f303c06
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0150.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0151.png b/27795-page-images/p0151.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..40ecb13
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0151.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0152.png b/27795-page-images/p0152.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..93de209
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0152.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0153.png b/27795-page-images/p0153.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b11f318
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0153.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0154.png b/27795-page-images/p0154.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..98843a6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0154.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0155.png b/27795-page-images/p0155.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2dbdc57
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0155.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0156.png b/27795-page-images/p0156.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ead5b3f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0156.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0157.png b/27795-page-images/p0157.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d7b3b73
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0157.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0158.png b/27795-page-images/p0158.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3bfeb2f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0158.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0159.png b/27795-page-images/p0159.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ce7e68d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0159.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0160.png b/27795-page-images/p0160.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1337a70
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0160.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0161.png b/27795-page-images/p0161.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..381d838
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0161.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0162.png b/27795-page-images/p0162.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b233a23
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0162.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0163.png b/27795-page-images/p0163.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c71974b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0163.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0164.png b/27795-page-images/p0164.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..323dd10
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0164.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0165.png b/27795-page-images/p0165.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a567dd5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0165.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0166.png b/27795-page-images/p0166.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ecdf212
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0166.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0167.png b/27795-page-images/p0167.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9fbc291
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0167.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0168.png b/27795-page-images/p0168.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..40394f4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0168.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0169.png b/27795-page-images/p0169.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..46586ce
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0169.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0170.png b/27795-page-images/p0170.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..eacdf8a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0170.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0171.png b/27795-page-images/p0171.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..10718d4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0171.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0172.png b/27795-page-images/p0172.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ff4327f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0172.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0173.png b/27795-page-images/p0173.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9466107
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0173.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0174.png b/27795-page-images/p0174.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..303859d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0174.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0175.png b/27795-page-images/p0175.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1db4109
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0175.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0176.png b/27795-page-images/p0176.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4bb9de1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0176.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0177.png b/27795-page-images/p0177.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..909ba28
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0177.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0178.png b/27795-page-images/p0178.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..45a175e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0178.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0179.png b/27795-page-images/p0179.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3415c27
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0179.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0180.png b/27795-page-images/p0180.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..29fdcc6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0180.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0181.png b/27795-page-images/p0181.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8e3f7ce
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0181.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0182.png b/27795-page-images/p0182.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..aee43ff
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0182.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0183.png b/27795-page-images/p0183.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6ab80e8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0183.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0184.png b/27795-page-images/p0184.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6d72a22
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0184.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0185.png b/27795-page-images/p0185.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6dfbe15
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0185.png
diff --git a/27795-page-images/p0186.png b/27795-page-images/p0186.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a208b81
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795-page-images/p0186.png
diff --git a/27795.txt b/27795.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d3c4126
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,3540 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Apologia Diffidentis, by W. Compton Leith
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Apologia Diffidentis
+
+Author: W. Compton Leith
+
+Release Date: January 13, 2009 [EBook #27795]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK APOLOGIA DIFFIDENTIS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Meredith Bach and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ [Transcriber's Note:
+
+  Greek words in this text have been transliterated into English and are
+  found within { } brackets.]
+
+
+
+
+          Apologia Diffidentis
+
+
+
+
+          _BY THE SAME AUTHOR_
+
+          Sirenica
+
+
+
+
+          Apologia Diffidentis
+
+                  By
+           W. Compton Leith
+
+         London: John Lane, The
+         Bodley Head. New York:
+         John Lane Company
+               MCMXVII
+
+
+
+
+           _Third Edition_
+
+     _Printed in Great Britain
+  by Turnbull & Spears, Edinburgh_
+
+
+
+
+              To One
+ Whose Friendship is beyond Desert
+         and above Requital
+
+
+
+
+Apologia Diffidentis
+
+    "I am naturally bashful; nor hath conversation, age,
+    or travel been able to effront or enharden me."
+
+                                       SIR THOMAS BROWNE
+
+
+In the matter of avowals the diffident never speak if they can write.
+That is why my apology for a furtive existence is here set down in
+solitude instead of being told face to face. You have borne so many
+years with my unresponsive and incomprehensible ways that shame at last
+constrains me to this poor defence; for I must either justify myself in
+your sight, or go far away where even your kindness cannot reach me. The
+first alternative is hard, but the second too grievous for impaired
+powers of endurance; I must therefore find what expression I may, and
+tell you how my life has been beshrewed ever since, a boy of twelve, I
+first incurred the obloquy of being shy. The word slips easily from the
+pen though the lips refuse to frame it; for I think most men would
+rather plead guilty to a vice than to this weakness.
+
+A doom of reticence is upon all our shy confraternity, and we seldom
+make confidences even to each other. It is only at rarest intervals that
+the spell is lifted, by silent sympathy, by a smile, by a tear, by I
+know not what. At such times our souls are like those deep pools of the
+shore, only open to the sky at lowest tides of still summer days, only
+to be approached across long stretches of wet sand and slippery shelves
+of rock. In their depths are delicate fronded seaweeds and shells tinted
+with hues of sundawn; but to see them you must bend low over the
+surface, which no lightest breath must furrow, or the vision is gone.
+
+Few of the busy toilers of the world will leave the firm sands to see so
+little; but sometimes one weary of keen life will stray aside, and
+oftener a child will come splashing across the beach to peer down with
+artless curiosity and delight. Then the jealous ocean returns, and the
+still clear depths are confused once more with refluent waters; soon the
+waves are tossing above the quiet spot, and the child is gone home to
+sleep and forget. I cannot have you with me at these still hours of
+revelation; I must tell my tale as best I can with such success as
+fortune may bestow.
+
+I shall say nothing of the miseries which embittered the life of the
+diffident boy. But I cannot pass in silence the deeper trouble of
+earliest manhood, when my soul first awoke to the dread that though
+other clouds might drift westward and dissolve, one would impend over me
+for ever. It was at the university that this vague misgiving crept upon
+me like a chill mist, until the hopes and aspirations of youth were one
+by one extinguished, as to a sailor putting out to sea the comfortable
+harbour lights vanish in the wracks of a tempestuous winter morning. I
+turned my face away from the gracious young life amidst which I moved,
+like a man possessed of a dark secret to his undoing. My heart, yet
+eager for the joy of living and yearning for affection, was daily
+starved of its need as by a power of deliberate and feline cruelty; and
+with every expansive impulse instantly restrained by this daemonic
+force, I was left at last unresponsive as a maltreated child, who flings
+his arms round no one, but shrinks back into his own world of solitary
+fancies.
+
+I think there is no misery so great as that of youth surrounded by all
+opportunities for wholesome fellowship, endowed with natural faculties
+for enjoyment, yet repressed and thwarted at every turn by invincible
+self-consciousness and mistrust: surely no lost opportunities of manhood
+leave such aching voids as these. In the spring-time of life to feel day
+by day the slow erosion of the power of joy is of all pains most
+poignant; out of it grow anxieties, premature despairs, incongruous with
+fresh cheeks and a mind not yet mature. This misery was mine for those
+four years which to most men are the happiest of a whole career, but to
+me at every retrospect seem so beset with gloomy shadows that could I
+live my life again, I would not traverse them once more for all the gold
+of Ophir.
+
+At first I writhed and strained in my bonds, and sometimes would make
+timid advances to the generous young hearts around me. But the tension
+always proved too sore; I never maintained the ground I had won, and
+with a perilous fatalism more and more readily accepted what I deemed
+inevitable failure. There were among them, I doubt it not now,
+Samaritans who would have tended my bruised limbs; but then they all
+seemed to be gliding over the black ice, too happy to stay and lift up
+the fallen. And bruised though I was, I still rose time and again and
+moved painfully among them, so that theirs was no culpable or merciless
+neglect.
+
+Yet the end for me was illimitable dreariness; and like Archie in _Weir
+of Hermiston_, I seemed abroad in a world from which every hope of
+intimacy was banished. And as with every month the hopelessness of
+resistance was made plainer and plainer, there came upon me the
+recklessness of the condemned man who jests or blasphemes to hide his
+ruth. Overwrought continually by forebodings of coming pain, unstrung by
+strange revulsions, I would pass from burning wrath to cold despair, a
+most petulant and undisciplined sufferer. Uniting in one person the
+physical exuberance of youth and the melancholy of disillusioned
+manhood, I was deprived of the balanced energy proper to either age, and
+kept up a braggart courage with the headiest wine of literature. I could
+not bear the bland homilies of the preachers, but ranged myself with the
+apostles of rebellion who blew imperious trumpet blasts before the walls
+of ordered life.
+
+Verily the violence of the blasts was sometimes such that the ramparts
+should have fallen down; and often in my exaltation I already saw them
+totter, as I strode along reciting the dithyrambs of men who like myself
+could find scarce a responsive heart-beat in all this throbbing world.
+Above all I gloried in the declamations of Queen Mab, which sanctioned
+by high poetic authority the waste of my affections and my moody
+defiance of life's most salutary law. With these upon my lips I roamed,
+an absurd pathetic figure, amid the haunts of the Scholar Gipsy, and the
+wayward upland breezes conspired with my truant moods. And while I sat
+by my lamp late into the night, I turned the pages of pessimists and
+cynics, for no principles are dearer to a man than those which allow him
+to profess contempt for the benefits which he cannot enjoy.
+
+Yet by seeking amid such simples a balm for wounded pride, I did not
+really deceive myself, but lived as a sophist rather than a philosopher.
+And all the while I was digging graves for my better instincts, until my
+sexton's mood, confining me within churchyard walls, gave me over almost
+entirely to the company of mental bats and owls. The danger of it all
+was that though I was yet youthful, and should have been still pliant as
+a sapling, I was fostering the growth of those habits which, like rings
+in the grain, are the signature of unyielding years. Naturalists say
+that a bullfinch fed only on hempseed gradually loses his fair plumage
+and becomes black as a raven: so my soul, nourished on thoughts of
+rebellion, put off its bright and diverse enthusiasms and was clothed in
+the dark garment of despair.
+
+When the long-desired hour of release came, and I was free to turn my
+back upon the spires of my prison city, I had already plumbed an abyss
+of misery. The very thought of life in the conflict of the world was
+abhorrent; and if I had been of the Roman Church I should have become a
+Benedictine and sought a lettered and cloistered peace. I despaired of
+finding anywhere upon earth the profound quietude, the absolute
+detachment, when a chance occasion seemed to crown my desire, and blind
+to all warnings of disillusion, I suddenly set sail for what I then
+thought might be a permanent sojourn in the East.
+
+Within two months' time the whole environment of my life was changed,
+and I was established on a lonely plantation set high upon a range of
+hills whose slopes were clothed with primeval forests verging to a
+tropical sea. My home, a white-walled, red-roofed bungalow with a great
+columned verandah like a temple's peristyle, lay in the issue of an
+upper valley threaded by a clear stream, whence you may look far down
+over rolling plains to an horizon lost in the shimmering heat of noon.
+Immediately to the east rose the cone of a great solitary hill, always
+outlined against the sky with a majestic isolation that lent it an
+almost personal existence, and at the birth of every day bearing the orb
+of the rising sun upon its wooded shoulder. Round about, in scattered
+villages of thatched and mud-walled huts, dwelled brown men of ancient
+pagan ways, men who neither knew progress nor set any price upon time.
+
+There I entered upon a wholly new existence as remote from all the
+social trials which beset shyness as if it were passed in some island of
+the uttermost sea. I had escaped from a harrying pursuit; I was free;
+and to the bliss of this recovered liberty I abandoned myself, without
+attempting to justify my flight to conscience or forming any scheme for
+future years. Like a deer which has eluded the hounds, I yearned only
+for rest and long oblivion of the chase; I wanted to live woodland days
+until, all the strain and panic of the past forgotten, I might rise
+refreshed and see a new way clear before me.
+
+And this first abandonment was a time of ecstasy. The long tranquil days
+were crowned by nights of peace yet more desired. I lay beneath the
+verandah and watched the stars in their splendour, not the pin-points of
+cold light that pierce our misty western heavens, but bright orbs in
+innumerable companies hovering upon the tranced earth. Night after night
+I saw the incomparable vision; month after month the moon rose slowly
+over the high wall of the jungle, first a great globe imminent upon the
+trees, next soaring remote through the upper heavens, waning at last to
+a sphere of pale unquickening light. I would lie thus for hours
+motionless, with lulled mind, until the breeze forerunning the dawn, or
+the quavering wail of the jackal, recalled the startled thought to the
+prison bonds of self.
+
+With the gentle lapse of months all these impersonal influences took
+dominion over me and gave me a quiet happiness never known before. The
+nights brought the greater light; but the days too had their glories. I
+would climb the rugged sides of the mountain, and emerging into a colder
+world sit beneath an overhanging rock and see the hot air quivering
+over leagues of plain; while in the nearer distance, far down beneath my
+feet, the rice-fields shone like emerald and the palm-fringed pools like
+shields of silver. Or I would stretch myself at early afternoon on the
+close-cropped grass on the jungle-edge, and watch the opposite sky take
+on an ever-deeper blue against the setting sun behind me. Often at such
+times I would hear a rushing in the highest branches, and turning very
+silently, see the outposts of a troop of monkeys peering down through
+the gleaming foliage. Then, if I moved, neither head nor limb, others
+would come, and yet others, leaping from branch to branch and plunging
+down from higher to lower levels like divers cleaving a deep green sea;
+until at last some slightest involuntary movement of mine would put the
+whole host to flight, and greybeards, young warriors, camp followers and
+mothers with their children on their backs would spring precipitate from
+tree to tree, screaming and gibbering like Homer's sapless dead. Then,
+when the stars rushed out and the darkness came on apace, it was sweet
+to wander home along those paths so dear to primitive men in all
+countries, narrow paths and sinuous, smoothed by the footfalls of
+centuries, winding patiently round every obstacle and never breaking
+through after the brutal manner of civilization. The fire-flies gleamed
+in the brushwood on either hand, and from every side rose that
+all-pervading hum of busy insects through which the tropic forest is
+never still.
+
+Amid these surroundings, so peaceful and so new, my soul was stilled to
+that {galene} or ocean-calm which the old Greek philosopher found the
+highest good for man. And month by month the mere material side of life
+grew of less moment; the body fretted the spirit less, but often seemed
+a tissue of gossamer lightness through which it could pass at will, as
+the breeze through the gleaming spider-webs upon the bushes at dawn.
+There were times when the ideal of the mystic seemed well-nigh
+accomplished, when my body might almost have been abandoned by the soul
+for hours upon end. The words of Emerson seemed to be fulfilled: "By
+being assimilated to the original soul by whom and after whom all things
+subsist, the soul of man does then easily flow into all things and all
+things flow into it: they mix; and he is present and sympathetic with
+their structure and law."
+
+As I write now amid the roar of London traffic, I well believe that to
+men who have never bathed in eastern moonlight, the description will
+sound hyperbolical and false. But when I think of those old days, how
+serene they were, how apart, I let the words stand: I am not artist
+enough to give them a more plausible simplicity. All conditions that a
+recluse might crave seemed now to be fulfilled for my benefit. The
+virgin forests and great hills were a perpetual joy, but there was a
+tranquil pleasure in the plantation which man's labour had reclaimed
+from these. That was a meet place indeed for the meditation of a quiet
+hour, and no more grateful refuge can be conceived than such a shady
+grove at the height of noon. You must not fancy an expanse of dusty land
+lined with prim rows of plants in the formal style of a nursery garden;
+but, spread over the lower slopes of the valleys, spacious woods of
+clean, grey-stemmed trees, with overarching branches thinned to cast a
+diaphanous shade over the sea of lustrous dark leaves below. The shrubs
+stood waist-high in serried, commingling ranks, their dark burnished
+leaves gleaming here and there in the sifted rays that found their way
+down through the vaults of foliage; the groves of Daphne had no more
+perfect sheen.
+
+I learned to feel for this gracious place a love only second to that of
+the wilder jungle; for nature thus tamed to work side by side with man
+loses indeed her austerer charm, but not her calm and dignity: these she
+brings with her always to be a glory to the humblest associate of her
+labour. Often as I pruned a tree, or stripped its stem of suckers, I
+felt the soothing, quickening influence of this partnership, and my
+thoughts turned to others who had known a like satisfaction and relief;
+to Obermann forgetting his melancholy in the toil of the vintage,
+plucking the ripe clusters and wheeling them away as if he had never
+known the malady of thought; or to Edward Fitzgerald out with the dawn
+among his roses at Little Grange.
+
+Amid these high dreams and simple occupations, time seemed to glide away
+like a brimming stream, and the only events that marked the passing of
+the years were wayfarings through the country-side, sojournings in
+strange, slumbrous native towns, expeditions of wider range to old white
+ports of Malabar still dreaming of the forgotten heroes whose story
+Camoens sang. After many such journeys the genius of this oriental land
+seemed to travel with us, so familiar did every aspect of this simple
+Indian life become. Our equipment was of set purpose the patriarchal
+gear of native fashion; narrow carts with great lumbering wheels were
+covered by matting arched upon bent saplings, and had within a depth of
+clean rice-straw on which at night mattresses were spread. Beneath each
+yoke went a pair of milk-white oxen with large mild eyes and pendulous
+dewlaps, great beasts of a fine Homeric dignity and worthy of
+Nausicaa's wain. They swung along with a leisurely rolling gait; and if
+their silent feet moved too slowly, the sleepy brown-skinned driver,
+crouching on the pole between them, would shame them into speed by
+scornful words about their ancestry, more prompt than blows in their
+effect on beasts of ancient and sacred lineage.
+
+We travelled at night or in the freshness of early morning, regardless
+of the hours, unfretted by the tyrannous remembrances of appointed
+times. Milestones passed slowly, like things drifting, which ask no
+attention, and hardly perceived in the moment of their disappearance,
+serve only to enrich and replenish the mind's voluptuous repose. It was
+a joy to lie drowsily back upon the straw, awaiting sleep and looking
+out upon the stars through the open back of the cart, while the
+fire-flies darted across the feathery clusters of bamboo, and the
+cradling sound of wheels and footfalls called slumber up out of the
+darkness. And it was equal delight to spring from the cart at first
+flush of dawn, and see some far blue hill in the east lined like a
+cloud with broadening gold, until the resistless sun rose a full orb
+above it, flooding the grey plains and making the leaves of the banyans
+gleam with the lustre of old bronze. But though the sun was come, we
+would often press on for yet three hours, through belts of
+squirrel-haunted wood, beside great sheets of water with wild-duck
+floating far amidst, and borders starred with yellow nenuphars, across
+groves of mango and plantain trees into landscapes of tiny terraced
+plots, where the vivid green rice-blades stood thick in the well-soaked
+earth, and bowed brown figures diverted to their roots the thread-like
+rivulet from the great brown tank above.
+
+Here would be a wayside shrine, a simple stuccoed portico with columns
+streaked in red, enclosing the sacred emblems with their offerings of
+golden marigold, and bearing upon each corner, carved in dark grey
+stone, Siva's recumbent bull. Here millet fields, with hedges of blue
+aloe or euphorbias like seven-branched candlesticks, announced a place
+of habitation; soon the village itself appeared, a long irregular line
+of white-walled houses roofed with thatch or tile, and here and there
+greater dwellings with carved balconies and barred verandahs, behind
+which impassive white-robed figures sat and seemed to ponder upon life.
+On the right, perhaps, would be a shop all open to the road, where,
+cross-legged upon a kind of dais, the merchant sat among his piled
+wares, unenterprising and unsolicitous, serenely confident in the
+balance-sheet of fate. On the left, in a shady corner, a barber would be
+bending over a half-shaven skull. Everywhere children of every shade
+from yellow to deep umber would be playing solemnly about the ways,
+turning upon the passing stranger their grave, unfathomable eyes.
+
+Beyond the village there would be a rest-house maintained for the use of
+wayfaring white men, and here we would repose through the heat of the
+day, reclining with a book in rooms shaded with shutters, or with fine
+mats drenched from hour to hour with cooling sprays of water. Then with
+the sun's decline we would set out once more, meeting a file of
+blue-robed women erect as caryatides as they came up from the well,
+each bearing upon her back-thrown head a water-jar of earthen or brazen
+ware, staying her burden with a shapely brown arm circled with bangles
+of glass and silver. In the short hours before the darkness, we would
+encounter all the types of men which go to make up Indian country
+life--the red-slippered banker jogging on his pony beneath a white
+umbrella, the vendor of palm-wine urging a donkey almost lost beneath
+the swollen skins, barefooted ryots with silent feet and strident
+tongues, crowds of boys and children driving buffaloes and cows, all
+coming homeward from their labour with the evening.
+
+And when these had gone by, and we rolled on through the scented air of
+the silent open country, we would come perhaps in the gathering darkness
+to a great river lapping and murmuring through the blackened rocks above
+the ford, and shining like a glorious path in the light of the rising
+moon. Silently, high above the banks, there would flit through the still
+air bands of flying foxes awakened for their nightly raid upon the
+plantain groves; and in the shadows of the further bank there would
+gleam a sudden light, or the echoes of a hailing voice would rise and
+then die away. Steeped in the poetry of all these things we would cross
+and emerge upon the opposite slope to begin the pilgrimage of the night
+anew. So to live tranquil days and unfretful, moving in quiet through a
+still land rich in old tradition--this was an experience of peace which
+no dreams of imagination could surpass, a freshness of joy penetrative
+as the fragrance of unplucked wayside flowers.
+
+Sometimes we would set out on longer journeys by land and sea, crossing
+the wooded ghats and descending to some old port of historic name,
+Cochin or Mangalore or Calicut, white places of old memory, sleeping by
+the blue waves as if no Vasco de Gama had ever come sailing up out of
+the West to disturb their enchanted slumber. The approach to these
+dreamy shores was dark and tumultuous, as if nature had set an
+initiation of contrasting toil before the enjoyment of that light and
+peace. It followed the bed of a mountain stream, which began in a mere
+pleat of the hills, tumbling often in white cascades, and enduring no
+boat upon its waters until half its course was run. But here it
+challenged man to essay a fall; for where it burst its way over rocky
+slopes were channels jeopardous and hardly navigable, sequences of
+foaming rapids, races of wild water swirling round opposing boulders,
+and careering indignant of restraint between long walls of beetling
+rock. Here when the sun had gone down we would embark with a crew of
+lithe brown men in a boat hewn from a single tree, seamless and stoutly
+fashioned to be the unharmed plaything of such rocks and boisterous
+waters as these. In these rapids the river waked to consciousness of
+mighty life, tossing our little craft through a riot of dancing waves,
+whirling it round the base of perpendicular rocks set like adamant in
+the hissing waters, sweeping it helpless as a petal down some glassy
+plane stilled, as it were, into a concentrated wrath of movement. The
+men sprang from side to side, from bow to stern, staving the craft with
+a miraculous deftness from a projecting boulder, forcing her into a new
+course, steadying her as she reeled in the shock and strain of the
+conflict, while their long poles bent continually like willow wands
+against her battered sides. The steersman stood silent, except when he
+shouted above all the din some resonant, eruptive word of command; the
+men responded by breathless invocations to their gods, relaxing no tense
+sinew until the pent waters rushed out into some broad pool where the
+eased stream went brimming silently, gathering new strength in the
+darkness of its central deeps.
+
+At such places the moon would perhaps be obscured by passing clouds, and
+we would land upon an eyot until she shone once more in a clear heaven.
+Stretched at length upon the fine white sand waiting for her return, we
+could hear the boom of waters in the distance calling us on to a renewal
+of the conflict. These periods of great stillness, interposed between
+tumults past and impending, had their own refinement of pleasure as far
+above the joys of fenced and covenanted ease as the bivouac of the hard
+campaign surpasses slumber in the fine linen of a captured city: they
+brought the wandering mind into communion with elemental forces, and
+seemed to hold it expectant of supernatural events. In that interlunar
+twilight there reigned a solemn sense of wonder evoked here eternally,
+one felt, from the ancient time, with the rustling of stirred foliage
+and the voice of those far waters for its music.
+
+The lulled reason yielded place to reverie, and the whole rapt being
+abandoned itself like an Orphic worshipper to the guidance of an unseen
+mysteriarch. This acquiescence in the swift succession of calm to fury
+and stress, resembled the quiet which may be conceived to follow sudden
+death; the heightened sense of vicissitude in things summoned up and
+sustained a solemn mood. All the while that we lay charmed and half
+oppressed in this atmosphere as of an under-world, the clouds were
+drawing forward on their course; and as their last fringe trailed slowly
+by and the moon was revealed once more, the spell was broken in an
+instant by human voices calling us to re-embark. Again we glided to the
+verge of tumultuous falls, again we were flung through foaming narrows
+and labyrinthine passages of torn rocks, until, the last promontory
+turned with arrowy swiftness, we shot through a postern of the granite
+barrier and bounded far into still water fringed with trees of
+profoundest shadow. We put in to shore, for this stage of our journey
+was over; the dawn was near; the carts stood waiting on the road. But
+the influence of the wonderful night, clinging about us, would keep us
+long silent, as if awed by the passing of ancient Vedic gods.
+
+I will not describe the later stages of these journeys: the coasting
+voyages in restful ships that seemed built to sail Maeander; the
+touchings at old wharfless ports; the visits to lone temples where
+Herodotus would have loved to linger; the rambles on the slopes of
+Adam's Peak; the meditations amid the ruins of Anaradhapura and
+Pollanarrua, ancient homes of kings, now stripped of every glory but
+that of these sonorous names--such are the records of every traveller,
+and are chronicled to satiety by a hundred hasty pens. A month of
+wandering within the fringe of civilization would be closed by a last
+week of patriarchal travel, bringing us back to our remote valley just
+as the clouds of the coming monsoon were ranging in denser ranks along
+the evening sky like the tents of a beleaguering army. Hardly had we
+time to settle down for the wet season, see to the stacking of
+fire-logs, and be sure that every tile on the roof was firm in its
+appointed place, when the embattled host seemed to break up from its
+last camp, and advance upon us along the whole line that the eye
+perceived.
+
+One year I was witness of the first onset, which came in the late
+afternoon--an immediate shock of massed clouds without throwing forward
+of skirmishers or any prelude of the vanguard. Our home looked down upon
+a gentle incline of open grassy land to a broad belt of jungle in the
+middle distance; here the undergrowth and small trees had been newly
+cleared away, opening out a dim far view across an uncumbered
+leaf-strewn floor into the backward gloom of the forest. I sat with my
+eyes fixed upon the trees, drawing the rain on with the whole strength
+of desire to the parched country lying there faint with the exhaustion
+of three months of drought. While I watched, the deep line of cloud, at
+first distinct from the forest-top along which it came rolling,
+insensibly merged with the foliage, until every contour was lost in a
+common gloom, only the great bare stems below standing pale against the
+gathering darkness. There was an intense stillness everywhere like the
+silence of expectation which falls upon an awestruck crowd; the very
+insects had ceased their usual song. And now the ear caught a distant
+sound, vague and deep, coming up out of the mid darkness, and growing to
+a mighty volume as a sudden wind swept out from the sounding foliage
+into the open land and searched every cranny of the house as it passed.
+Then, as if drawn by the wind, there came into view among the nearest
+tree-stems a moving grey line advancing with a long roar until it hid
+the whole forest from sight: it was the wave of battle about to break
+upon us. It came on like a wall, enormous, irresistible; one instant,
+and it had devoured the intervening space; another, and we were lost in
+the deluge, and the great rain drops were spilled upon the roof with the
+noise of continuous thunder. As the deep sound reverberated through the
+roof above me, I went in exulting to a hearth piled with blazing logs,
+glad in the prospect of renewing for many weeks old and quiet habitudes
+of indoor life, rich with solace of books and tranquil meditation.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I have dwelt upon the outward aspects of my life in exile, because the
+sojourn of these years amid the hills and forests taught a natural
+leechcraft which was to stand me in good stead in coming years, and may
+stand in equal stead other souls desolate as mine. Like the Nile
+brimming over the fields, a flood of joy from nature overlaid my parched
+being, enriching it with a fertile loam, and shielding it from the
+irritations of the world. I lay fallow beneath the still, sunlit waters,
+unharrowed by teasing points of doubt, and porous to the influence of an
+all-encompassing peace. Exile had opened to me a new heaven and a new
+earth, whose freshness and calm charmed thought away from all vain
+questionings; the fascination of outward things had for a while cooled
+the useless ardour of introspection. But it was inevitable that the
+bland ease of such a contemplative life should bring no enduring
+satisfaction to the mind; it was not an end in itself, but a mere means
+to serenity, a breathing-space useful to the recovery of a long-lost
+fortitude. The time was now come when the hunted deer, refreshed in the
+quiet of his inaccessible glen, was to awake to new thought of the herd,
+and of the duties of a common life; when the peace of successful flight
+was to appear in its true light as a momentary release, and no longer as
+the ultimate goal imagined in the anguish of pursuit.
+
+It was during this last monsoon that doubts began to stir within,
+interrupting my studies of the systems of Hindu philosophy and my
+porings over sacred books. The vague insistence of these misgivings made
+me surely aware that even in this eastern paradise all was not well;
+but at first I refused to listen, and plunged deep into the maze of the
+Vedanta to escape the importunate voice. Yet anxiety came up around me
+like a heavy atmosphere; an indescribable sense of disillusion, clinging
+as a damp mist, brought its mildew to the soul, until my new heaven was
+overcast and my new earth dispeopled of all pleasures. Then one day the
+fever struck me down, and of a sudden my mind became an arena in which
+memories of earlier life chased one another unceasingly in the round of
+a delirious dance. Trivial events impressed themselves on consciousness
+with strange precision; objects long forgotten rose before me outlined
+in fire--one, a pane of stained glass in Fairford Church, with a lost
+soul peering in anguish through the red bars of hell. Each and every
+apparition was of the old life; all were emissaries from the forsaken
+West summoning me back to my renounced allegiance. When the fever left
+me, returning reason slowly brought order amid the welter of confused
+ideas, as the ants sorted the grain for distracted Psyche, and for the
+first time I considered in the detachment of reminiscence the nature of
+my action in leaving England. I sifted the evidence at length as I lay
+under the verandah slowly recovering strength; and when at last judgment
+was delivered, it took the necessary form of condemnation.
+
+I saw now that unless a man is prepared to discard every western usage,
+to slough off his inherited cast of thought, to renounce his faith,
+wholly and finally to abandon his country and his father's house, his
+flight is but the blind expedient of cowardice or pride. Here and there
+may be born one who can so cut himself off from the parent stem as to
+endure a fruitful grafting upon an oriental stock, but I knew that I at
+least was none such. I was no more prepared for so uncompromising a
+renunciation than any other weakling who seeks prestige by parade of
+exotic wisdom, and deems himself a seer if he can but name the Triad, or
+tell the avatars of Vishnu, I had not the credulity which may justify
+the honest renegade, and the western blood still ran too warmly in my
+veins. I felt that were I to stay in the East for fifty years, I should
+never reach the supreme heights of metaphysical abstraction whence men
+really appear as specks and life as a play; therefore to remain was to
+avow myself a runaway and to live henceforth despicable in my own eyes.
+For over the unfathomable deep of oriental custom the torrent of our
+civilization flows unblending, as in the Druid's legend the twin streams
+of Dee flow clear through Bala lake, and never mingle with its waters.
+Not for our use is that intricate mind which in logic needs more than
+two premises to a conclusion, and in art is intolerant of all void
+space, entangling its figures in labyrinths of ornament which Maya
+herself might have devised to distract the sight from truth.
+
+The Hindu has the true dignity of contemplation, and superbly removes
+himself from the sordid greeds of life. But in imagining and reviling an
+abstraction called Matter, he abides in the errors of the first Greek
+sages, and mines so far beneath the trodden earth that when he looks up
+into middle day he sees only the stars above him. Could I have shared
+the eremite's belief that his prayers help not merely his own solitary
+soul but all souls travailing through all the world, I might yet have
+remained where I was, an alien living indifferent to the common rule,
+like a monk of some shunned exotic order. But with convictions like
+mine, to do so would have brought the drear sense of derogation. All the
+miseries of the past were as nothing to that; there was but one manly
+course--to return and gird my loins for a new struggle with western
+life. Within a month from the time when this course was seen to be a
+duty, I was standing on the deck of a homeward-bound steamer, watching
+the harbour lights recede into the distance.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Back once more in England, I threw aside the clinging robe of
+meditation, and falling upon work ravenously, indulged what genius of
+energy was still alive within me. I made haste to adore all that I had
+so lately burned, making life objective, revering personal ideals, and
+in the ordinance of material things finding the truest satisfaction of
+all endeavour. I saw in civilization the world's sole hope; its brisk
+life and abounding force took sudden hold of a fancy enervated by
+dreams. Again I found a new heaven and a new earth, though earth was now
+no more than man's dinted anvil, and heaven his reservoir of useful
+light. I lived for action and movement; I mingled eagerly with my
+fellows, and cursed the folly which had driven me to waste three years
+in an intellectual swoon. Now the day was not long enough for work,
+Lebanon was not sufficient to burn. I saw the western man with race-dust
+on his cheeks, or throned in the power-houses of the world, moving upon
+iron platforms and straight ladders in the mid throb and tumult of
+encompassing engines. One false step, and he must fall a crushed and
+mutilated thing. Yet unconcerned as one strolling at large, he
+controlled the great wheels and plunging pistons, and brought them to a
+standstill with a touch of his finger. The confidence and strenuous ease
+of such life compelled me to marvel and admire, and I who had so lately
+lain at the feet of eastern sages, set up this mechanician as my god.
+If I looked back at all to the land of dreams, the placid figure beneath
+the Tree of Enlightenment took on the aspect of a fool's idol, ignobly
+self-manacled, pitiful and irksome in remembrance.
+
+But if once more I dreamed of finality in change I deceived myself,
+forgetting that God Himself cannot unmake the past or undo what is done.
+A year had hardly gone by in this new apprenticeship to life, when at
+moments of weariness or overstrain sharp doubts shot through me and were
+gone again, like twinges of sudden pain recalling old disease to one who
+has lulled himself with dreams of cure. The feeling of fellowship with
+men grew weaker, and as it waned I began to shrink once more from my
+kind. I still believed myself happy, but happiness seemed to need
+constant affirmation, as though it could make no way in my favour
+without display of token or credential to confirm its truth. There were
+pauses in the clatter and jangle of life; the revolutions of the great
+wheels sometimes slowed into silence; and as these interludes grew more
+frequent, I caught myself repeating that I really was content. The faint
+assurance given, I flung myself with devouring industry upon my allotted
+task, trying to stifle the forebodings which prophesied against my
+peace.
+
+In one such pause my old self appeared before me again, like the face of
+an ancient enemy looking in from the darkness; stealthy footfalls which
+of late I had so often seemed to hear were now referred to their true
+cause as we saw each other eye to eye. The old Adam had awakened and was
+come for his inheritance; and the vision of him there across the pane
+gazing in upon his own, seemed to arraign me for disowning a brother and
+denying his indefeasible right. I recognized that with this familiar
+form cold reason had returned to oust the hopes and emotions which had
+usurped her office. My rush for freedom had ended, as such sallies often
+do, in exhaustion, capture and despair; upon the thrill and thunder of
+the charge followed the silence of the dungeon and the anguish of
+stiffening wounds. The truth, so simply written that a child might have
+spelled it, lay clear before me: I had left reformation till too late. I
+was too old to change.
+
+Even a few years before, I might have dashed out, like Marmion, from the
+prison-fortress; but now the opportunity was past and the portcullis was
+down. My character with all its faults was formed within me; and the
+very years which I had passed in the wilderness, instead of averting the
+danger, had set the final seal upon my fate, for when a man has reached
+a certain point in life he is intractable to the reforming hand. But
+though at last I knew myself beaten, and helpless in the hands of an
+implacable power, I fluttered like a wounded bird and sought wildly for
+a loophole of escape. I could no longer hope to stand alone against
+destiny; that conceit was gone: could I find a comrade to help me
+through the press and lift me when I fell? But here the invincible pride
+of shyness barred the way, forbidding alike any confession of weakness
+or any appeal to man's compassion. I could not bring myself to say: I am
+unable to rule my life, do you undertake it for me. Was marriage a
+conceivable path of redemption? I had never envisaged it before, but
+now, in my desperation, I dreamed it for a moment a possible issue. I
+even fixed upon the person who should thus save me from myself, and
+beguiled many lonely hours by picturing her charms and enumerating her
+noble qualities.
+
+She lived in a country house where I had been several times a guest, and
+she had one of those faces which, in Gray's beautiful expression, speak
+the language of all nations. Her features had that sunny charm which
+thaws mistrust; she was dowered with all graces and sweet qualities; and
+you could no more have doubted the immanent nobility of her nature than
+you could have dreamed a stain in the texture of a white petal. And with
+all her gentleness there was present I know not what sign and promise of
+strength, waking in those who saw her an intuitive trust in loyalty of
+uttermost proof. She would have flamed indignant against evil, but only
+evil could have moved her from that equal poise of soul which made her
+entrance into a room the prelude to higher thoughts and finer feelings.
+She was naturally kind without consciousness of a mission, neither
+seeking to enslave nor enfranchise, but by a silent outflowing of
+goodness ennobling whatever company she was in. Nor was her tongue the
+prattling servant of her beauty, but a guide of cheerful converse; for
+just as she charmed without device or scheme of fascination, so she
+possessed the art of speaking well without seeming to have ever studied
+it. In the chase after just and felicitous ideas, she could lead or
+follow over the most varied fields with the intuition of the huntress
+born. With all these excellences, her wit, her sincerity, her ardour for
+all things bright and true, she had no conceit of herself but kept her
+father's house in gladness and loved the country-side.
+
+To her, in these days of imminent dismay, my thoughts flew out as to a
+fair protecting saint; until the inspiration of her visionary presence
+wrought in my fancy with such a dramaturgic power, that I seemed to walk
+daily with her, and to know all those delicate and sweet propinquities
+by which liking passes into affection and affection is glorified into
+love. So far did these happy day-dreams carry me, that they brought me
+to the extreme of imaginary bliss, and poured out for me the wine of
+untempered joy which thrills the hearts of lovers on the verge of their
+betrothal. The dreams that followed that magic draught denied me no
+convincing touch of circumstance, and projected upon a credible and
+familiar scene the bright possibilities to which fate denied a real
+existence. The scene was always the same, and the words and movements
+which entranced me followed each other with almost religious exactitude
+of detail which the adult demands of his day-dreams and the child of the
+fairy-tale he loves.
+
+It was always a June afternoon when we went out together, into the
+meadows near her home; she moving with fluent grace as befitted a
+daughter of the woods, her eyes indrawing joy from all nature, her hair
+reflecting rich gold of the sunlight, her whole face lit with the
+pleasure of a bright hour; I a mere satellite attendant upon its
+central star. We strolled through the four home-meadows, crossed a
+high-banked lane and a dingle with a brook running down it, and then
+from an open common flooded with sunlight passed into a wood of tallest
+beeches. In that cool, shadowy place the sun, searching a way through
+crannies in the upper verdure, chequered with patches of silver light
+the even mast-strewn floor. The multitude of smooth grey stems rose
+aligned like cathedral columns; and the grateful dimness of the wood,
+succeeding the glare of day, wakened a sense of purposed protection and
+quietude pervading all things, which soothed the mind with the illusion
+that this was a sacred spot appointed for an offering of souls. Near one
+of those isles of sunlight we lingered; and as she looked up to the
+source of light, the movement brought her face near the slanting shaft
+of rays, until there was set round it an aureole of dancing beams. It
+seemed to me at this part of my dream that there came to both of us some
+gracious influence, for as her eyes met mine they dropped again, and
+were fixed for a moment upon the wild flowers she carried. Then my heart
+began to beat and my whole being to grow greater: impassioned words, to
+that hour unconceived, came rushing to my lips; the fire and glory of a
+new manhood were kindling in me to the transformation of my
+nature--when, in the very moment of utterance, a sheer barrier of doom
+descended between me and my joy; the fire was quenched, and my soul was
+poured out within me.
+
+To this fatal point my fancy always brought me and no further, that
+coming thus to the threshold of the house of joy and hearing the bars
+shoot into their sockets I might thoroughly know my ineffectual self and
+leave untouched the forbidden latch. So far I came in my dream times
+without number; and always on the verge of joy there came that doom, and
+the shooting of those adamantine bolts.
+
+Yet all the while I wove it, I knew that this texture of dreams must
+soon be drawn aside, and like the curtain in the tragedy reveal at last
+the horror concealed within. Such brooding was but the deception of a
+reluctant spirit dallying and delaying with any trifle by the way to put
+off the arrival at the hill of evil prospect. At last I learned the
+lesson of this abrupt ending to the dream at the point of full
+disillusion; it forced itself upon me with the power of an oracular
+utterance warning me to cease my palterings with fate. My reason now
+rebuked me like a stern judge, dissecting all false pleas and laying
+bare their weakness. What right had I, now knowing myself incurable,
+even to dream of easing my own pain by darkening and despoiling a second
+life? The love of solitude was now more to me than even the love of a
+wife; it would surely come between us like a strange woman, and fill a
+pure heart with bitterness. No smiling hopes of a possible redemption
+could annul the immutable decree, and if I disobeyed the warning, guilt
+as well as misery would be mine; for he is pitiful indeed who only weds
+that his wife may suck the poison from his wounds. If I married I should
+stand for ever condemned of an unutterable meanness. So I dispelled my
+dreams and looked reality in the face.
+
+It was a dismal prospect that lay before me. Until then the future had
+held its possible secrets, its imaginable revelations of change, which,
+like the luminous suggestions in dark clouds, allured with a promise of
+a brief and penetrable gloom. In my darkest hours I had lulled fear by
+the thought of a haply interposing Providence, and drifted on from day
+to aimless day nursing the hope of some miraculous release upon the very
+steps of the scaffold. But now I was twice fallen; and as a man
+abandoned by the last illusion of deliverance calls ruin to him, and in
+the new leisure of despair calmly scans the features at which but now he
+dared not glance, so I saw as in a hard grey light the true outlines of
+my destiny. The wreathing mist, the profound soft shadows, the clouds
+with their promise of mutability, were now all gone, leaving the bare
+framework of a world arid and severe as a lunar landscape.
+
+I seemed to be sitting in the dust, as in inmost Asia a sick man may
+crouch abandoned, while the caravan in which all his earthly hopes are
+centred goes inexorably upon its way. The blue sky flushes to deep
+purple before him; night falls; all colour is swallowed up in darkness,
+until the jingling camel-bells receding up the pass cross the dividing
+ridge, and for him the last silence is begun. Such then was the end of
+youthful ambition: for food a mouthful of ashes instead of the very
+marrow of joy; for home not the free ocean, but a stagnant pool ringed
+with weeping willows, a log's fit floating-place. Here to float, marking
+the weed creep onward until all from bank to bank was overfilmed, and
+there remained no clear water of space for reflection of a single star:
+to float, and feel the sodden fibres of life loosening in slow
+decay--this was to be the last state of the seedling which had sprung up
+on the mountain slopes with promise of mighty stem and overarching
+branches full of sap like the cedars of the Lord.
+
+My life henceforth was to be ringed round and overhung with so heavy an
+air that joy and fancy should never fly in it, but fall dead as the
+birds above Avernus according to the ancient story. I seemed to see
+nothing upon the path of the future but the stern form of Renunciation
+drawing between me and the living world the impassable circle of death
+in life, the _ultima linea rerum_. It was the last decree, the
+irrevocable sentence, the absolute end: and I had not yet reached half
+the Psalmist's span; I had not yet forgotten the lost summer mornings
+when the breeze scented with lilac came blowing through the casement,
+bearing with it the sound of glad voices welcoming the day.
+
+Philosophers are prone to gird at the animal in man, accusing it of
+dragging the soul down to the mire in which it wallows. They forget that
+by its brutal insistence upon physical needs it often preserves from
+madness, and timely arrests him who goes like a sleep-walker upon the
+verge of the abyss. Weariness and hunger are like brakes upon the car;
+they stop the dire momentum of grief, and insure that if misery will
+again drive us furiously, she must lash winded steeds anew. But what
+force should stay a disembodied sorrow, which unbreathed by period or
+alternation of despair, should be rapt onward in the whirlwind and the
+hurricane, gathering eternally a fresh impetus of woe? Let us rail at
+the body for its weakness if we will, but prize it also for its
+restraint of the distracted mind. In the worst hour of my dejection it
+was the body which called the lost reason home. I became hungry and ate,
+hardly knowing what I did; I slept exhaustion away; and after many hours
+awoke with clearer eyes, grateful to the weak flesh, and ready in its
+company to face life once more, a defeated but not a desperate man. I
+was glad to be thus reminded that the body could play this helpful part,
+and my gratitude for its timely rescue taught me in after days to endure
+its tyranny with a better grace. In the interlude between despair and
+new effort, I once more turned a dispassionate gaze upon myself, as upon
+some abandoned slave of a drug; and maintaining an attitude of
+half-amused detachment, sought by a diagnosis of my case to establish
+the real causes of my failure to lead a normal life.
+
+At the outset I would make it clear that for me the only shyness that
+counts, is that which is so deeply ingrained, as to have outlasted
+youth. It may, indeed, be physically related to that transient
+bashfulness which haunts so many of us in our younger days only to
+vanish at maturity, swift as the belated ghost at cockcrow. But unlike
+this common accident of growth, it is no surface-defect, but an inward
+stain which dyes the very fibres of the being. It may, indeed, be
+somewhat bleached and diminished by a timely and skilful treatment, but
+is become too much a part of life to be ever wholly washed away. And the
+unhappy step-children of nature whose inheritance it is, seldom find a
+deliverer good at need; for as the world draws no distinction between
+their grave affliction and that other remediable misery of youth, it
+will sanction no other treatment than banter or mockery, which does but
+infuse yet more deeply the mournful dye. When this fails, it leaves its
+victims to the desolation which according to its judgment they have
+wilfully chosen; for the most part ignoring their existence, but often
+chastising them with scorpion-stings of disdain. Yet the subjects of
+this scorn, sufferers as I believe from a hereditary tendency matured by
+neglect into disease, deserve a more merciful usage than this, and their
+plea for extenuating circumstances should not be too impatiently
+rejected. For in them what is to most men a transient ailment has thrown
+down permanent roots to draw a nourishment from pain: and he who is
+fortunate enough to be whole should think twice before he makes sport of
+those in this distress.
+
+To me this malady seems to arise from an antinomy between the physical
+and intellectual elements of the personality, from an unhappy marriage
+of mind and body, suffering the lower of the two partners to abase the
+life of the higher by the long-drawn misery of a hateful but
+indissoluble union. When the physical and mental natures in a man are
+happily attuned, there is a fair concord in his life and the outward
+expression of his being is an unimpeded process, to which, as to the
+functions of a healthy organism, no heedful thought is given. If both
+natures are of the finest temper, they find utterance in a noble
+amiability and ease of manner; if both are coarse in the grain, they
+blend in a naive freedom always sure of itself, the freedom of Sancho
+spreading himself in the duchess's boudoir. Between these two extremes
+there intervene a hundred compromises by which minds and bodies less
+equally yoked contrive to muffle the discordant notes of an inharmonious
+wedlock.
+
+In most cases use gives to this politic agreement the peace and
+permanence of settled habit; the body proves itself so far amenable that
+it is accepted as a needful if uninspiring companion, and its plain
+usefulness ends by dulling the edged criticisms of the mind. But
+wherever there is a permanent incompatibility too profound for
+compromise, an elemental difference keeping the personality continually
+distraught, then shyness, in the sense in which I understand it, assumes
+its inalienable dominion. The flame of rebellion may smoulder unobserved
+while the sufferer is in his own home, but among strangers it will
+blaze fiercely, as the mind protests against the misinterpretations of
+its unworthy partner. This burning shame is not the proof of a foolish
+conceit, as unsympathetic criticism proclaims it, but the visible misery
+of a keen spirit thwarted by physical defect. The man who manifests it
+is angered with himself because through a physical hindrance he has
+failed to take the place which would otherwise be his. He is proud, it
+may be, but not fatuous; for shyness as a rule implies a comparative
+quickness and alertness of intellect: its exceeding sensibility is
+exclusive of dulness; and it is frequently due to the presence in a
+reluctant body of a mind endowed with active powers.
+
+Inasmuch as diffidence appears where the subtler formalities of life are
+compulsory, it is clear that it essentially belongs to the class called
+gentle, for this class alone enforces that exacting code of etiquette to
+which our discomfiture is so largely due. Shyness has seldom place in
+the patriarchal life where men live, "sound, without care, every man
+under his own vine or his own fig-tree," nor among those who, perforce
+pursuing a too laborious existence, have no leisure for superficial
+refinements. Though here and there you may find a Joseph Poorgrass, it
+is rare among the simple; it is not a popular weakness, and therefore
+wins no popular sympathy. Such is its first social limitation: it is
+almost restricted to the classes which are outwardly refined.
+
+But it has another limitation of equal importance which may be described
+as climatic; for this malady is not found in equal degrees all over the
+habitable globe. There are many lands where it hardly exists at all even
+among the class which is alone liable to it; and in its serious form it
+is found only over a small part of the earth. There are many causes
+which conduce to this partial distribution. In one country manners are
+not minutely schooled, women being held of secondary account, and men
+content without subtlety; in another, life is in itself too primitive to
+devise the artifices of refinement; in a third, the fundamental disunion
+between the mind and the physical organism is prevented by the kindly
+hand of nature. For these reasons all the savage world, all the East,
+and the whole of southern Europe have little knowledge of the diffident,
+and what zoologists would call the area of distribution of the species
+is confined within narrow geographical limits.
+
+It is in fact chiefly in the north and west of our own continent that
+the haunts of the diffident are to be found, for there alone are all the
+conditions necessary to their maintenance fulfilled--a society
+sufficiently leisured and wealthy to have elaborated conventional rules
+of intercourse, the assemblage of both sexes upon an equal footing, and
+a climate which exaggerates the antagonism between the quick mind and
+the unresponsive body. Here the cold humid airs have produced a race
+with great limbs and great appetites, but compensated these gifts by a
+certain unreadiness in the delicate encounter of wits and graces. To
+these impassive natures all displays of the personality are distasteful,
+and the lighter social arts, seeming both insignificant and histrionic,
+are learned with difficulty and practised with repugnance. An
+awkwardness of address, in the uneducated almost bovine, becomes in the
+cultivated a painful reserve and self-consciousness, reflecting in open
+physical distress the uneasiness of the man's whole being.
+
+And among the northern nations which are thus afflicted England has
+achieved an undesirable supremacy, having herself smoothed the path of
+her eminence by a school system which withdraws her youth from female
+influences during the years when the tendency to reserve may be combated
+with a certain hope of success. It would ill become one who has never
+recovered from the effects of such deprivation to assume on the ground
+of his own narrow experience any wide dissemination of similar defects
+among his countrymen; his testimony would be received with suspicion,
+and he would be condemned as one who to justify himself would drag
+others down to his own poor level. Let me therefore place myself on
+surer ground by calling as a witness an impartial observer from another
+country, one exceptionally trained in the analysis of national
+temperament and conduct.
+
+When M. Taine visited England towards the close of the nineteenth
+century one of the first things to attract his notice was the
+bashfulness which he encountered in unexpected places. He was surprised
+to meet travelled and cultured men who were habitually embarrassed in
+society, and so reserved that you might live with them six months before
+you discovered half their excellent qualities. To unveil their true
+nature there was needed the steady breeze of a serious interest or the
+hurricane of perilous times; the faint airs of courtliness could not
+stir the heavy folds that hung before their hearts. These strong men
+could not join in delicate raillery, but shrank back afraid; as if a
+tortoise, startled by a shower of blossoms, should withdraw into that
+thick carapace which can bear the impact of a rock. There was one who
+stammered pitifully in a drawing-room, but the next day sought the
+suffrages of electors with an unembarrassed and fluent eloquence, so
+proving that his failure came not of folly or cowardice, but from lack
+of training in a certain school of fence. He needed the open air for the
+play of his broadsword; and to his hand, apt to another hilt, the foil
+appeared a woman's weapon. Speaking of high aims and national ideals, he
+moved in a large place oblivious of himself; but in the social arena he
+tripped with timid steps, like a man essaying an unfamiliar dance. On
+the platform he had the enthusiasm and confidence of an orator; on the
+carpet he could not string three sentences in any courtly language.
+
+In the North the art of mercurial dialogue, which in the South is a
+natural gift, is only learned under favourable conditions, and is often
+condemned by those who have it not, as a popinjay's accomplishment.
+Immediate cordiality to strangers is frowned upon as tending to divorce
+courtesy from truth. It is otherwise with the southern peoples. While
+the Englishman conceals his benevolence by a frigid aloofness of manner,
+or blurts out friendliness like an indiscretion, the Italian is courtly
+without a second thought, and the Frenchman seems the comrade of a
+chance acquaintance from the moment when he has taken his hand. They are
+amiable without effort in the security of a harmonious nature, and if
+they encounter diffidence at all, observe it like an anthropologist
+confronted with a survival of primitive times in the culture of a
+civilized age.
+
+Taine did not err when he found the home of shyness among the Teutonic
+peoples; he saw that it flourishes in climatic conditions acting hardly
+upon a vigorous race, and only allowing it to cultivate ease of manner
+by effort and outlay, just as they only allow it to raise under glass
+the grapes and oranges which more favoured peoples can grow in the open
+air. He saw too that this pain of diffidence becomes more subtle as the
+progress of culture makes us more sensitive to vague impressions from
+our environment, and tunes the nerves to a higher pitch. A shy nature
+upon this plane of susceptibility suffers anguish from an uncontrollable
+body; and even in peaceful moments the memory of the discomfitures so
+inflicted may distort a man's whole view of the world around him. He is
+impatient of the wit which demands a versatility in response beyond his
+powers, and persuades himself into contempt of those ephemeral arts to
+which his nature cannot be constrained. Irritated at the injustice which
+places so high in the general scale of values accomplishments which he
+cannot practise, shrinking from the suave devices of gesture and
+expression which in his own case might quickly pass into antic or
+grimace, he withdraws more and more from the places where such arts win
+esteem to live in a private world of inner sentiment. As he leaves this
+sure retreat but rarely himself, so he forbids ingress to others; and
+becoming yearly a greater recluse, he confines himself more and more
+within the walls of his forbidden city. The mind which may have been
+fitted to expand in the free play of intellectual debate or to explore
+the high peaks of idea, loses its power of flight in this cave where it
+dwells with a company of sad thoughts, until at last the sacrifice is
+complete and the perfect eremite is formed.
+
+But the virile Teutonic spirit does not suffer things to reach this
+ultimate pass without stubborn resistance, and this is one reason why
+shyness is often so conspicuous, seeming deliberately to court an
+avoidable confusion. Over and over again it forces the recalcitrant body
+back into the arena, preferring repeated humiliation to a pusillanimous
+surrender. People often wonder at the recklessness with which the shy
+expose themselves to disaster, forgetting that in this insistence of a
+soul under discomfiture, there is evidence of a moral strength which is
+its own reward. What discipline is harder than that which conscientious
+diffidence imposes upon itself? To stand forth and endure, though every
+instinct implores retreat, is a true assertion of the higher self for
+the satisfaction of imperious duty. Such deliberate return towards
+suffering is no cowardice, but a triumph over weak flesh; and the
+awkward strife of diffidence may often prove a greater feat of arms than
+the supple fence of self-possession.
+
+Like the physical obstacles, the mists, the snows and bleak winds, which
+have hardened the fibre of northern men, diffidence as an obstacle to
+ease has its place among the causes of strong character; and those who
+appear at a first glance weak and ineffectual as Hamlet, will often in
+the light of knowledge be found guided by the most inflexible moral
+determination. They see, as in a mirage, peace supreme and adorable, but
+may not tread the hermit's path that leads to her dwelling. Only a
+religious vow might justify the abandonment of the human struggle, and
+even that appears desertion. The stern genius of the North grudges
+immurement, even to great piety, remembering that Christ himself
+remained but forty days in the desert and then returned to deliver the
+world. If he had remained there all his life, and never met the
+Pharisees and high-priests, our forefathers would have rejected his law.
+For this reason there can be no more rest for the shy than for starving
+Tantalus; for this reason my flight into the East had been foredoomed to
+failure.
+
+If shyness is thus affected by climate and geography, its birth and
+growth are also conditioned by historical causes. Just as it is the
+peculiar failing of northern and western peoples, so it is the creation
+of comparatively modern times; it had no place among the classified
+weaknesses of men until these peoples began in their turn to make
+history.
+
+In Greece, where limb and thought were consentient in one grace of
+motion, the body was too perfect an expression of the mind to admit any
+consciousness of discord; the greater simplicity of a life passed
+largely in the open air, left no place for awkwardness in the franker
+converse of man with man. Moreover the seclusion of women rendered
+unnecessary that complicated code of manners which the freer intercourse
+of the sexes has built up in later times as a barrier against brutality
+or the unseemly selfishness of passion. In Greece the words of the witty
+and the wise could be heard in the market-place; good conversation was
+not for the few alone; and the common man might of unquestioned right
+approach the circle of Socrates or Plato. The sense of community was
+everywhere, overthrowing reserve, and propitious to the universal growth
+of fellowship.
+
+In the Roman world things were changed; there were more closed doors and
+courts impenetrable of access. Insignia of office, gradations of wealth
+and rank, sundered those of high estate from classes which now
+acknowledged their own inferiority; privacies, exclusions, distinctions
+innumerable, altered the face of public life as the easy _mos majorum_
+was confined by the ordinances of encroaching fashion. It was now that
+women began to be cast for leading parts upon the great stage of life.
+Under the Empire, by the rapid removal of her disabilities the Roman
+matron achieved a position of independence which made her, according to
+her nature, a potent force of good or evil. It was now that the
+intricate threads of social prescription were woven into that ceremonial
+mantle which was afterwards to sit so uneasily on the shoulders of
+barbarian men.
+
+But the time for shyness was not yet come, for Italy is a sunny land
+where clear air makes clear minds, blandly or keenly observant of the
+world, and never impelled by onset of outer mists and darkness to tend a
+flickering light within themselves. There was melancholy, high and
+stately, such as Lucretius knew, when he went lonely among the
+homesteads or along the shore; but it was too exalted to be one with
+diffidence, for he who will hold the sum of things in his thoughts walks
+on clouds above the heads of men, free of all misgiving. Perhaps beyond
+the Alps, in some Rhaetian upland where Roman dignity was interfused with
+old barbaric roughness, the first signs of our malady were perceived and
+the first ancestor of all the shy was born. But even yet the time was
+not ripe, nor the place prepared. Christianity had to come, turning
+men's eyes inwards and proclaiming the error of the objective pagan way.
+A new feeling, the sense of personal unworthiness before God, spreading
+through the Roman world, now stirred mankind to still communing with
+themselves, and sanctioned the stealing away from the noisy festivals of
+life. By enjoining a search into the depths of the heart, it encouraged
+the growth of a self-consciousness hitherto unknown. It was not always a
+panic of contrition, sweeping the joyous out of the sunlight into a
+monastic shade, which brought the troubled into a new way of peace, but
+sometimes a quiet joy in renunciation, congruous with a timid mood,
+leading by gradual allurement to cloisters of shadowy lanes and cells
+which were forest bowers. The new faith gave open sanction to evasion of
+the banquet, and thus fortified and increased those who loved not the
+ceremonial day. The spirit of solitude, no more a maenad, but a nun,
+sheltered earth's children in the folds of her robe, and no man said her
+nay.
+
+Moreover, Christianity quickened the force of that feminine influence
+which Rome had first set flowing through the civilized world, but
+diverted the stream from irregular and torrential courses into a smooth
+channel gliding amid sacred groves. It clothed woman with ideal grace
+and virtue, and perceived in her powers which the virile mind could
+never wield. "Inesse quinetiam sanctum aliquid et providum putant, nec
+aut consilia earum aspernantur, nec responsa negligunt." So our
+ancestors held in the northern woods, and Christianity, purifying and
+expanding their belief, fulfilled it with a new perfection.
+
+But this gradual binding of all men's limbs in silken cords of
+reverence, making a rude world civil, was now to inaugurate for
+diffidence its miserable career. Through the rough deference of the
+German camp, through the Provencal code of _courtoisie_, up to the
+modern law of fine manners, the drudge and chattel of the primeval tribe
+has risen to impose her law upon the modern world. Earth is better for
+this finer power, but social intercourse is less sincere. For woman,
+having curbed the brute man by conventional restraints of outward
+demeanour, has made human intercourse smooth and seemly, but imposed
+upon mankind the wearing of unnatural masks. Before the multitude of
+locked souls with labels of smiling faces the sensitive nature feels
+itself mocked, and is soon distraught. It cannot suffer convention
+gladly for an ultimate good, but is chilled by this everlasting
+urbanity, which must, it fancies, be compact of irony and conceal a
+disingenuous soul.
+
+All this finished science of illusion is like an east wind to the
+confidences of the shy, and if they stay within its range they are
+blighted before their hearts have time to unfold. They long for a less
+biting air, for vernal hours in sheltered dells, where without sheaths
+and unguarded the hearts of flowers lie open to their neighbours and to
+heaven. There was once a simple day when religion set hearts
+interflowing, but now it can melt them only within the precincts; the
+fire which is carried from the altar is dead at the church door. The
+brotherliness of those early days is indeed often found in humble walks
+of life, but these we cannot continually tread, because our intellectual
+and artistic tastes find there no sufficient nurture. Among the cultured
+a cold convention often reigns, behind which only a more persistent
+nature than ours can pass. Unless, therefore, we find our way into some
+circle of gentle scholars or lovers of the beautiful quite simple in
+their tastes, a thing possible but not often granted by a niggard
+fortune, we are perforce thrown back upon our own company, and move
+towards the grave alone. For this we accuse none; nothing is more at
+fault than our own constitution. But to us society is a school of dames,
+who are not to be blamed if amid the crowd that clamours for their
+teaching, they find no time for the backward scholar. We are the dunces
+of the school, and are dismissed without learning the accomplishments
+set forth upon the prospectus. That is why in our northern streets so
+many seeming hats are cowls.
+
+In England the loss of congenial intercourse is perhaps more certain
+than in other lands. For through his national reserve the
+highly-cultured Englishman has a cold perfection of good breeding to
+which heartiness is vulgarity; he emanates intimidation, and in courtesy
+is rather studious than spontaneous, seldom genial but in an ancient
+friendship. If you knew him to the concealed heart, and were suffered to
+assay the fine metal beneath this polished surface, you would win a
+golden friendship; but only on a desert island would he permit the
+operation. To the shy who may encumber his path his bearing seems marked
+by an indifference which they magnify into aversion, and are thereby the
+worse confounded. In a land where such convention reigns they go through
+life like persons afflicted with a partial deafness; between them and
+the happier world there is as it were a crystalline wall which the
+pleasant low voices of confidence can never traverse.
+
+I say, then, that the real, the enduring shyness is that inveteration of
+reserve to which a few men in a few countries are miserably condemned.
+Others know it as a transient inconvenience, as the croup or measles of
+childhood; but in us it is obstinate and ineradicable as grave disease.
+If out of the long frustration of our efforts to be whole some strain of
+bitterness passes into our nature; if sometimes we burn with unjust
+resentment against the fate which, suffers such lives as ours to be
+prolonged, let it be remembered in extenuation that to those who bear a
+double burden human charity owes the larger kindliness. For though like
+you we bear our share of common troubles, O happier men and women, the
+common pleasures and compensations which are as wings upon your
+shoulders are heavy packs on ours. The cheerful contrasts are for you
+alone; for us the bright threads interwoven in the dark stuff of life
+were faded before they reached the loom.
+
+You who have the friendships and affections without which you would not
+care to live a day, think more kindly of those to whom the interludes of
+toil are often harder than the toil itself. Of your charity believe our
+fate ordained and not the choice of our own perversity; for what man
+born of woman would choose a path so sad, were there not within him some
+guiding and possessing devil which he could in nowise cast out? Never
+will in maddest hours of freedom consented to such doom; we were
+condemned at birth, our threads were spoiled upon the fingers of the
+Norns.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Such in its broader outlines seemed the infirmity which had grown with
+my growth, and now had to be reckoned with, like the bridle of Theages,
+as a permanent hindrance to a reasonable happiness. Old hopes lay
+shattered about me--well, I had to pick up the fragments and piece
+together a less ambitious ideal.
+
+I will not linger over the forces which helped my resolution, the great
+and general remedies which come to the relief of men in like evil case.
+Religion, philosophy, art, science, literature--all promised their
+anodynes against despair; slowly they stirred in me anew those springs
+of interest in life which disillusion seemed to have choked for ever. I
+rose up, and looking round upon the world saw that it was still good;
+and there came into my memory brave words which a golden book puts in
+the mouths of its indomitable knights: "I will take the adventure which
+God shall ordain me." I now perceived that if evil fortune had unhorsed
+me it had yet left me endurance to continue the combat on foot. My
+second failure was more final and disastrous than the first discomfiture
+in earlier life, but now the plague of pessimism was stayed by a
+greater recuperative power. Those long hours of the long eastern day,
+spent under the verandah with books of many ages and languages, had not
+been altogether fruitless; they had helped to mature a wider and more
+catholic taste than that of restless youth, the kind of culture that
+brings not rebellion but peace.
+
+In my eastern watch-tower I had re-read the great books from a new point
+of vantage, and let the eye roam over fields of literature which lie
+beyond the undergraduate's bounds; by a still permeation of fine
+influence, my crude philosophy was unconsciously mellowed, as the
+surface of ivory, according to Roman belief, by the bland air of Tibur.
+For by the mere being in an atmosphere of serenity our nature grows
+porous to gracious influences streaming in we know not how or when, and
+taking their abode in our very grain and structure. And so without
+consciousness of good desert, I found myself confident in a new
+discipline, and looking for the word of command from wiser leaders than
+Byron or the youthful Shelley. Queen Mab was now the saddest rhetoric,
+and Childe Harold's plaint unseemly lamentation; I had erased from my
+calendar of saints the names of apostles of affliction once held in
+honour; the Caliph Amurath with his tale of fourteen happy days out of a
+long life of royal opportunity; Swift with his birthday lection from
+Jeremiah. Rather there trooped into memory with a quiet pomp and
+induction of joy, forms of men who, though justified in rebellion by
+every human suffrage, remained loyal to the end and proved by endurance
+a more imperial humanity. Socrates unperturbed by mortal injustice;
+Dante a deep harmonious voice amid jangling destinies; William the
+Silent serene in every desperate conjecture--these seemed now the more
+perfect captains. If exile had done no more than transfer my allegiance
+to such as these, I had not borne the lash in vain.
+
+But at the first setting out upon this later stage I had still mistakes
+to make, and the ascent to tranquillity was not to be accomplished
+without stumbling. It was the old Roman creed which first drew me away
+from fretting memories; in its high restraint, as of a hushed yet mighty
+wind, it breathed a power of valiant endurance, and promised before
+nightfall the respite of a twilight hour. For stoicism has qualities
+which seem foreordained for the bracing of shy souls, as if the men who
+framed its austere laws had prescience of our frailty and consciously
+legislated to its intention. It is the philosophy of the individual
+standing by himself, as the shy must always stand, over against a world
+which he likes not but may not altogether shun. And in this proud
+estrangement it promises release from all the inquisition of morbid
+fears, and an imperturbable calm above the need of earthly friends or
+comfort or happiness; it plants the feet upon that path of nature along
+which a man may go strongly, consoled in solitude by a god-like sense of
+self-reliance. This immutable confidence is the essential power of
+stoicism, which does not, like the great oriental religions, tame
+personality by ruthless maiming, but teaches it to bear the brunt of
+adversities erect, like an athlete finely trained. Its very arrogance,
+its sufficiency, perforce commend it to those whose instinct urges to
+self-abasement: its lofty disregard of adverse circumstance is medical
+to their timidity.
+
+And so in the hour of my bereavement its voice inspired to resistance
+like a bugle sounding the advance; its echoes rang with the assurance
+that man was not made to be the worm of Eden, darkly creeping in the
+dust, but rather its noblest creature, with the light crowning his head
+and the winds tossing his hair. And then its strong simplicity, so
+masculine and unemotional, was grateful to one now finally dismated, and
+so cruelly handled as to have, it seemed, no use for a heart any more.
+Better let feeling die than be betrayed by diffidence into the denial of
+its true allegiance, or into expressions of the inner life false and wry
+as the strange laughter which the doomed suitors in Ithaca could not
+control. Though it stifled feeling, the creed of Cleanthes exalted the
+intellect, which was all that now remained to me unimpaired; surely it
+was the appointed rule for one henceforth to be severed from the
+passions and enthusiasms through which humanity errs and is happy.
+
+"The world," the wise Stoic seemed to say, "is twofold in its nature.
+Some things may be changed by man, others are by his utmost effort
+immutable. God has implanted in you a right reason by which, when it is
+well trained, you can infallibly distinguish between the two, avoiding
+thus all unworthy fretfulness and all idle kicking against the pricks.
+Therefore he has made you for happiness; for the joy of men is an
+achievement; and their misery in the coveting of the unattainable end.
+If you would fulfil his benevolent design, seek only what has been
+placed in your power, frankly resigning all that lies beyond; but be
+ever difficult in renunciation; test and sound well every issue, lest
+you leave a permitted good undone, than which nothing is a greater sin.
+To be loyal, to be contented, to acquiesce in all things save only in
+ameliorable evil, this is to live according to nature, which is God's
+administration. If you are assiduous in careful choosing, you will learn
+at last to make a right use of every event; you will be harassed no
+more by vain desire or unreasoning aversion, but will become God's
+coadjutor and be always of his mind. So, when external things have
+ceased to trouble your spirit, you will no longer be a competitor for
+vanities; but, enfranchised from all solicitude, you will have discarded
+envy and conceit and intolerance, which are the ill fruits of that vain
+rivalry. You will neither cringe before power nor covet great place, for
+alike from inordinate affection and from the fear of pain or death you
+will be free. Disenamoured of mundane things, you will live simply and
+unperturbed, in kindness and cheerfulness and in gratitude to
+Providence. Life will be to you as a feast or solemnity, and when it
+comes to a close, you will rise up saying, 'I have been well and nobly
+entertained, it is fit that I give place to another guest.'"
+
+The strength and mastery thus promised raised my dejected spirits, as
+the words of a new and sanguine physician may hearten one who had long
+lain stricken yet now dares to hope for the day of recovery. This was a
+law which did not denounce the world as illusion or enjoin a cloistral
+seclusion upon the mind, but rather proposed each and every appearance
+as a touchstone on which the quality of personality should be
+unceasingly tried. By the constant application of a high standard to
+life, it seemed to implant an incorrupt seed of manliness, and to create
+in its disciples that saner mood which holds in equal aversion a
+Heliogabalus and a Simeon Stylites. So persuaded, I could join with the
+fervour of a neophyte in the Stoic's profession: "Good and evil are in
+choice alone, and there is no cause of sorrowing save in my own errant
+and wilful desires. When these shall have been overcome, I shall possess
+my soul in tranquillity, vexing myself in nowise if, in the world's
+illusive good, all men have the advantage over me. For all outward
+things I will bear with equal mind, even chains or insults or great
+pain, ashamed of this only, if reason shall not wholly free me from the
+servitude of care. Let others boast of material goods; mine is the
+privilege of not needing these or stooping to their control. I will
+have but a temperate desire of things open to choice, as they are good
+and present, and the tempter shall find no hold for his hands by which
+to draw me astray. I will be content with any sojourn or any company,
+for there is none, howsoever perilous, which may not prove and
+strengthen the defences of my soul. For I have built an impregnable
+citadel whence, if only I am true to myself, I can repel assaults from
+the four quarters of heaven. Who shall console one lifted above the
+range of grief, whom neither privation nor insolence can annoy? for he
+has peace as an inalienable possession, and by no earthly tyranny shall
+be perturbed. Bearing serenely all natural impediments to action,
+trespassing beyond no eternal landmark, by no foolishness provoked, he
+shall become a spectator and interpreter of God's works; he shall ripen
+to the harvest in the sunshine and wait tranquilly for the sickle,
+knowing that corn is only sown that it may be reaped, and man only born
+to die."
+
+The mere repetition of these words, so instinct with the spirit of old
+Roman fortitude, roused me to a more immediate resolution than any
+other form of solace. There are times when a splendour of exaggeration
+is the best foil to truth. The Roman's pride is the best corrective to
+the earthward bias of the diffident; by its excess of an opposite defect
+it drives us soonest into the mean of a simple and manly confidence. It
+is better for us first to repeat, "Dare to look up to God and say: Make
+use of me for the future as Thou wilt, I am of the same mind, I am equal
+with Thee.... Lead me whither Thou wilt," than to dwell upon such words
+as these: "It is altogether necessary that thou have a true contempt for
+thyself if thou desire to prevail against flesh and blood"--or these:
+"If I abase myself ... and grind myself to the dust which I am, Thy
+grace will be favourable to me, and Thy light near unto my head.... By
+seeking Thee alone and purely loving Thee I have found both myself and
+Thee, and by that love have more deeply reduced myself to nothing."
+
+This supreme abnegation may leave the saint unharmed, but it is ill
+fitted for those who droop already with the malady of dejection. The
+divine wisdom which knows the secrets of all hearts and their
+necessities infinitely various, shall exact obedience according to no
+adamantine law: it loves not the jots and tittles of formalism, nor the
+pretensions of those who would cast all things in one mould. From those
+made perfect, from the saints whose links with earth are almost severed,
+whose sight begins to pierce gross matter through, it may accept
+prostration and endless contrite tears, knowing that to these, upon the
+very verge of illumination, the forms of slavery have lost their
+vileness. But to those who are still of earth and can but conceive God's
+fatherhood according to earthly similitudes, it will not ordain a prone
+obeisance. Such it will require to stand erect even in contrition, in
+that posture which is the privilege of sons. We who are unperfected
+affront God supposing him pleased with the prostration of his children.
+It is the ignorance of a feudal age that ascribes to him a Byzantine
+love of adulation; but that age is no more, and he disserves the divine
+majesty who imputes to it a liking for the _esprit d'antichambre_.
+
+I did not need to dwell upon my weakness and misery but rather upon the
+grandeur of humanity, whose kinship and collaboration God himself does
+not reject. The Stoic phase was a useful stage on the road of
+convalescence, and the majestic words of Epictetus more helpful to a
+manlier bearing than the confessions of the saintliest souls. If, as is
+not to be doubted, there are others who seek an issue from the same dark
+region where I wandered, I do not fear to point them to the Stoic way,
+which like a narrow gorge cold with perpetual shadow is yet their
+shortest path upward to the high slopes lit with sunlight. Let them
+enter it without fear and endure its shadows a while, for by other ways
+they will fetch a longer compass and come later to their release.
+
+But when some interval had passed I became aware that this cold ideal
+was not the end, and that out of the gall of austerity sweetness should
+yet come forth. Wise men have said that all great systems of ethics
+meet upon a higher plane, as the branches of forest trees rustle
+together in the breeze; for though in the dark earth their roots creep
+apart, their summits are joined in the freedom of clear air. As I now
+struck inland from the iron shores of shipwreck, my heart warmed to a
+brighter and softer landscape, and with Landor I began to wish that I
+might walk with Epicurus on the right hand and Epictetus on the left.
+With a later thinker I reflected that if the Stoic knew more of the
+faith and hope of Christianity, the Epicurean came nearer to its
+charity. For it is true that Stoicism commands admiration rather than
+love. It was indeed too harsh a saying that "the ruggedness of the Stoic
+is only a silly affectation of being a god, to wind himself up by
+pulleys to an insensibility of suffering": that is the judgment of the
+bluff partisan, so shocked by the adversary's opinions that he feels
+absolved from any effort to understand them. But even those who in
+extremity have been roused to new valour by the precepts as by a Tyrtaean
+ode, for all the gratitude which they owe, will not impute to their
+deliverers an inhuman perfection. The Stoic does in truth wear a
+semblance of academic conceit, as though related to God not as a child
+to its father, but as a junior to a senior colleague. And with all its
+sufficiency, his philosophy seems too Fabian in its counsels; it is
+always withdrawing, passing by on the other side, avoiding battle--so
+that as a preparation for the uttermost ordeal it will often prove
+inferior to the reckless pugnacity of a narrow zealot.
+
+Then, too, it acts like a frost not merely upon personal, but upon
+national ambition, and so keeps the wellspring from the root. Its
+assumption of a superhuman fortitude accords but ill with scientific
+truth, for if with one bound every man may become as God, he will
+despise that infinitely slow upward progression which is the only real
+advance. But, above all, it lives estranged from tenderness, in which
+alone at certain hours of torment the distracted mind finds God's face
+reflected. It preaches renunciation of all vain aversions and desires;
+but it repels sweet impulses that are not vain. By exalting apathy in
+regard to personal suffering, it becomes insensible to others' pain
+also. In the conviction that appeals for sympathy are avowals of
+unworthiness, it will have no part in the love of comrades, and it never
+discovered the truth that the strength and the compassion of the Divine
+are one perfection.
+
+There is a favourite mediaeval legend depicted in one of the windows of
+the cathedral at Bourges, which exposes in a characteristic fashion this
+weakness of the Stoic's creed. The Evangelist St John, when at Ephesus,
+remarked in the forum the philosopher Cratinus giving a lesson of
+abnegation to certain rich young men. At the teacher's bidding the
+youths had converted all their wealth into precious stones, and these
+they were now bidden crush to dust with a heavy hammer in the presence
+of the assembled people, that so they might make public profession of
+their contempt for riches. But St John was angered at so wasteful a
+renunciation. "It is written," he said, "that whoso would be perfect
+should not destroy his possessions, but sell them, and give the proceeds
+to the poor." "If your master is the true God," replied Cratinus
+scornfully, "restore these gems again to their original form, and then
+they shall be bestowed according to your desire." St John prayed, and
+the precious stones lay there once more perfect in all their brilliance
+and splendour. The moral of the old tale is clear--that all virtue
+without charity is nothing worth; and that of virtue without charity,
+the Stoic's cold renunciation is the chief type and ensample.
+
+The insight into this higher truth did not come by inspiration, but was
+gradually imparted during long summer days, when I wandered from dawn to
+dark among the fields and woods. Hoping at first no more than to tire
+the mind with the body and so win a whole repose, I became by degrees
+receptive of a new learning from nature, which created new sympathies
+and kindled fresh ambitions. Naturally I again read Wordsworth, and now
+for the first time since childhood I knew what joys intimacy brings. I
+was one of a brotherhood, and wherever I went was sure of a friendly
+salutation. Things that grew in silence became my friends; I was with
+them at all hours, in light and shadow, in warmth and cold, watching
+their gracious and responsive existences, which reject no good gift, but
+radiantly grow towards the light while it endures. Insensibly the spirit
+of this gentle expansive life was infused within me, until the heart
+which I had deemed useless and outworn, began to open like a flower
+scathed by frost, at the full coming of spring. The plants and trees
+were human to me, the brooks spoke with articulate voice; by that
+ancient witchery of animism, old as the relationship of man and nature,
+I was put to school again: until at last, absorbed in the vicissitudes
+of small things and surrendering reason to a host of pathetic fallacies,
+I was taught the great secret that life may not be centred in itself,
+but in the going out of the heart is wisdom. And as among human friends
+there are some to whom a man is bound by deeper and tenderer links than
+to the rest, so it is with these other friends which have no language,
+but only the wild-wood power of growing about the heart. Among their
+gracious company each man will discover his own affinity, and having
+found it will look on the rest of nature with brighter eyes. Some learn
+the great lessons from mountains, lakes, and sounding cataracts; others
+from broad rivers peacefully flowing to the sea. To me there spoke no
+such romantic voices. My wanderings led me through a country of simple
+rural charm, and the friends that became dearest to me were just our
+English elms.
+
+Who but the solitary, artists alone excepted, understand the full charm
+of elms in an English landscape? To us there is an especial appeal in
+their loneliness, as they range apart along the hedgerows, embayed in
+blue air and sunlight which do but play upon the fringe of your huddling
+forest. See them on a breezy August morning across a tawny corn-field,
+printing their dark feathery contours on a blue sky and holding the
+shadows to their bosoms; or on a June evening get them between you and
+the setting sun, and mark the droop and poise of the upper foliage
+fretted black upon a ground of red fire. Here are no cones or
+hemispheres, or shapeless bulks of green, but living beings of
+articulated form, clothed in verdure as with the fine-wrought drapery
+that enhances rather than conceals the beauty of the statue.
+
+Or at a still later hour, over against the harvest moon, see them rise
+congruous with the gentle night, casting round them not palls of ominous
+gloom, but clear translucent shadows sifted through traceries of leafage
+which do but veil the light. And what variety of form and structure
+sunders them from other trees, what irregular persuasive grace. Some are
+tall and straight, springing like fountains arrested in the moment when
+they turn to fall; others bend oblique without one perpendicular line,
+every branch by some subtle instinct evading the hard angles of
+earth-measurement as unmeet for that which frames the sky; others again
+spread to all the quarters of heaven their vast umbrageous arms. No
+trees are so companionable as the elms to the red-roofed homestead which
+nestles at their feet and is glad for them. Seen from a distance, how
+delightful is this association, how delicate the contrast of tile and
+leaf and timbered barn, each lending some complement to the other's
+fairest imperfection. Perhaps there will be a whole line of distinct
+trees, and then you will see as it were a cliff-side of verdure in
+which, beneath the billowy curves of lit foliage, there open caverns and
+cool deeps of shadow fit for a Dryad's rest.
+
+To know the elm-tree you must not come too near, for it too is wild and
+does not reveal its nature lightly; you may be cooler in the shadow of
+the beech or stand drier beneath the red-stemmed leaves of the sycamore.
+Yet it suffers the clinging ivy; it was beloved of poets in old days,
+and painters love it still. It has not the walnut's vivid green nor the
+rare flush that lights up the pine-stem. Its leaves are rough and of no
+brilliance; its bark is rugged also. But in life the familiar guardian
+of home meadows, it has stood by our fathers' landmarks from generation
+to generation, and when fallen and hewn and stacked it sheds a
+fragrance which, wherever perceived in after years, brings back memories
+of wanderings in deep lanes and of the great dim barns where we played
+in childhood. In the dull winter days when only yews and cypresses wear
+their leaves, I sometimes wander to a place whose walls are hung with
+the works of many a seer and lover of elms; there seated before a few
+small frames I give them thanks for having read the dear trees truly,
+and glorified a close and barren gallery with all the breezes and
+colours of the fields: I am beyond all noise and murkiness, walking in
+the peace and spaciousness of unsullied air.
+
+To a mind now happily reverted to the primitive confidence in souls
+everywhere indwelling and creating sympathies between all things, the
+bonds of kinship between man and nature were drawn ever closer, and it
+seemed a wholly natural belief that the changes of the visible universe,
+affecting things which lived an almost personal existence, should be
+instinct with the deeper meaning of events in the drama of human
+existence.
+
+Like the every-day life of men with its imperceptible attritions was the
+insensible growth and decay of things; as the tumult of his emotions
+were the storms and catastrophes that convulse the face of nature. The
+movement never ceased; the transforming power was never wearied; the
+spectator had but to give rapt attention, to be carried beyond his poor
+solicitudes to a participation in elemental processes of change in which
+the fates of humanity were mysteriously involved. The thought of this
+indissoluble union kept alive the sense of brotherhood within me, of
+responsibility in life, of interest in all that happens; and whether it
+was the daily contraction of a pond in drought, or a battle of ants by
+the wayside, or the first tinge of autumn upon the woods, all was
+ennobled by symbolic relationships to man's experience, which in the
+unceasing flow of their perception were lustral to a solitary heart,
+without them choked and stagnant.
+
+There was a certain heath-clad ridge which like a watch-tower set above
+a city never failed to bring before the ranging eye some vision
+pregnant of those emotions by which the sense of humanity is quickened
+to a deeper consciousness of itself. The witchery of space was there
+always, and seemed to draw from the soul the clinging mists of her
+indifference. It was there that I saw nature in all her moods, and felt
+that to each my own moods responded; there that despondency, imagining
+her monotony of woe, was confuted by the saving changefulness of created
+things. I remember one day, when a summer storm was spending its fury, I
+stood upon this ridge and looked across the low lands that stretched
+away beneath me. They lay with all their boundaries confused by a pall
+of purple gloom, then darkly transparent, and dissolving before the
+returning sun, whose penetrative influence was felt rather than actually
+perceived. As I gazed, high in the veil of cloud there began faintly to
+gleam a spot of palest gold, so high that it seemed to belong to the sky
+and to have no part in an earthly landscape. Gradually it expanded, grew
+more vivid, and assumed form, other forms and tints emerged beside it,
+until at last it was revealed as a ripe corn-field on the high slopes
+across the valley, and before many moments had passed, a long line of
+downs stood out in the pure air with a sculptural clearness, as if
+during the storm all had been uprooted and moved a whole league towards
+the spot where I stood. While the rainbow spanned the plain, and the
+thunder still rolled in the distance, all the opposite heaven cleared
+almost to the furthest horizon; but there a remoter range yet lay
+half-covered by a billowy mass of clouds, like the hull of a dismasted
+ship in the folds of her fallen sails. At last even this trace of the
+battle was gone; the sun shone unopposed; the wet lands and clear sky
+were lit with an intenser brightness for their transient eclipse.
+
+Then the humanity of all these things was borne in upon my mind, and I
+was affected by these vicissitudes shadowing forth the destiny of man,
+and reminding him in their beautiful and majestic procession that nature
+endures no perpetual gloom. The sudden ruin of a bright day in deluge
+and darkness and sonorous thunder, the timid reappearance of faint
+light, the natural forms strangely emerging from the perplexed wrack
+infesting the heaven, and at last seen as never before through leagues
+of pellucid air; the thunder's silence, the final and supreme triumph of
+light;--these swift yet utter revolutions of the visible world, by very
+grace of mutability, were rich with instant consolations for the soul's
+misgiving. They served to remind me that the fears, the spiritual
+conflicts, the darkness that seems eternal, are mere incidents of a
+summer noon and leave behind them a purer and serener day. Through all
+this close intercourse with nature my mind was being prepared for a
+healthier relation to my fellow-man, and my heart saved from the
+petrification of melancholy self-regard. The ever-growing delight in
+these inanimate things, the constant discovery of new charms as
+knowledge widened with experience, united to prevent stagnation and
+despair; they kept heart and mind alert for the perception of new
+glories; and it is from a clear sense of their salutary power that I
+dwell upon them in this record of a self-tormented life. How should he
+find life colourless whose eyes are often fixed upon the sky, who sees
+grey zones of cloud flush crimson before the sunrise, and at evening the
+wide air richly glowing, moted as with the bloom of plums and the golden
+pollen of all flowers?
+
+At the end of that summer I returned to the occupations of life,
+appeased and almost happy in this inheritance of new sympathies. And
+before long I found that these were themselves but precursors of that
+which was to come, and that like the paranymphs who escort the bride,
+they did but apparel the heart for a deeper and more abiding joy. They
+were busied about me in tranquil hours, and speaking not, but seeming to
+wait in gladness for another, they made me serenely expectant also. They
+destroyed all sadness of retrospect; they led me always forward; with
+faces transparent with the light of an inward happiness they seemed to
+promise a vision at each near bending of the way. From glad looks and
+gestures assuring imminent joy, I too was charmed into a like faith, and
+went on blithely in the confidence of a coming illumination. Nor was
+that hope vain, for at length the mystery was made plain, and one day
+they brought me exulting into the presence of the Ideal Love.
+
+There is a place in every heart which must be filled by adoration, or
+else the whole will grow hard and wither like a garden whose central
+fountain is grown dry. And though the affection of mortal man or woman
+may abandon it, there remains yet this other love which by pure and
+strenuous invocation may be drawn to it, and dwell in it, to the
+ennoblement of life; so great is the care of providence for mortal need.
+Love is our need, and it is given, if we despair not of it, even to such
+as have rarely felt the glow of earthly passion. For love is of many
+kinds; yet the palest and most subtle of its forms are made real to
+those who believe, and may become the guiding influences of their lives.
+Such are the visions of the ideal love to which those glad natural
+sympathies now led me, leaving me alone awhile that I might worship the
+orient light. And when I came out from that presence I rejoiced indeed,
+for the path was clear for my return, and life was now glad with promise
+like an orchard burgeoning with white blossoms. Old memories crowded
+back on me of hours beneath the cedars with the Phaedrus and the Vita
+Nuova, hours made happy with intellectual and austere delights. But now
+the joy was other than intellectual, though significant tenfold, for
+then in untried youth I had wondered at the beauty of an imaginary
+world; now with eyes that had looked on desolation I perceived that
+these visions were true. For had they been no more than airy fancies,
+they surely had not endured throughout these long ages in our laden and
+mortal air.
+
+It was not merely the beauty of a literary setting which had preserved
+them: the craftsman's skill might indeed have enhanced their natural
+splendour, but it could not have alone inspired them with this perennial
+life. The gem with fire in its heart outlives the delicate setting;
+though it may be maltreated and buried for centuries by the wayside, it
+will come to light when the gold that framed it is long battered or
+lost, and will be desired by new generations for its inherent and
+unalterable beauty.
+
+Not Plato's or Dante's creative power, but truth surviving all
+incarnations of genius, has kept this celestial gem aglow: they have but
+celebrated that which was never mortal, and guided wandering eyes to
+heaven's most beautiful star. This intangible and unincarnate vision
+exacts more from its votaries than the love which walks the earth:
+holding the lover ever in the strain of apprehension, it inures him to
+unwearying worship, and itself moving in regions incorruptible, never
+loses the glory of its first hour. The years may pass, but one face,
+like a hallowed thing, abides continually; years may fret and corrode
+other ideals, but to this they add beauties of ever fresh significance.
+The auroral glow is always round it, brightening the world, until it
+becomes an emblem of illumination and the symbol of eternal truths. This
+visionary presence wakes aspiration to new effort and touches the
+intellect with passion; beleaguered thought sallies out with new
+strength, and the frontiers of darkness recede before it. From this
+comes the quickening of the heart without which hope wanes and the mind
+is barren: the deep pure joy of contemplation awakens all that is best
+in the soul, which goes towards it on tense wings of desire. And as with
+time it draws further from the earth, and, following, the soul essays
+ever higher flights, it is often poised at a great height as in a trance
+of motion, whence it looks back upon the world it has left, and round it
+upon other worlds. Then, its love-range being wondrously expanded, it
+sees beyond that visionary countenance, which dissolves and forms again
+like a delicate wreath of mist; and clear starlight falls upon it from
+every side, so that all shadow is destroyed. And when it returns to
+earth again, and is forced to contemplate meaner things, it is now aware
+that the very soil is compacted of dust of stars, and that he who looks
+listlessly upon creation is unworthy of the human name. And so
+continually flying forth and returning, it weaves endless bonds between
+the infinitesimal and the infinite, forgetting how to despise, which is
+the heavenly science.
+
+All this ardour is awakened and sustained by love, which began in sense
+and is now transformed. Through each succeeding change it is known for
+the same divine power which has so attuned the body that it vibrates no
+more to desire alone, but is now become resonant beneath a faint and
+spiritual breath.
+
+It is an old story that love is sightless, but that is the love which
+romps among the roses and is blinded by their thorns. There is another
+and a better tradition that love's eyes pierce heaven, and this is a
+great truth; for infinity is cold and vaporous until man projects upon
+it his mortal ideal, his conception of an earthly love transfigured.
+When this beloved guide appears throned above him as in the clouds, he
+dares to lift his eyes, and there he reads through its light the divine
+purports of his existence. Is it a small thing to stand, though but for
+a moment, searching infinity undismayed? This is the celestial ocean to
+whose shore he is come; and now "drawing towards and contemplating the
+vast sea of beauty, he will create many fair and noble thoughts and
+notions in boundless love of wisdom, until on that shore he grows and
+waxes strong, and at last the vision is revealed to him of a single
+science, which is the science of beauty everywhere ... beauty absolute,
+separate, simple, everlasting, which without diminution, without
+increase, or any change, is imparted to the ever growing and perishing
+beauties of all other things."
+
+To some the great perception comes but late, rising from the ashes of
+love's common furnace. But they whose hearts have never been consumed in
+these roaring flames may find it earlier; and purged from all taints of
+jealousy and covetousness, may pass straightway into the bliss of a
+higher union. This is that supreme affiance and espousal of the soul
+wherein they may be released into a larger air, undelayed by the
+earthward longings and gradual initiations of seemingly happier men.
+Thus its servants do not decline into slothful service, but are
+strenuous always; raised above the acquiescence of use, they never know
+the cloying of fruition or suffer the barbarian conquest of
+indifference. Their soul is unaffected by material circumstance or
+misfortune, and illuminates their lives as often as in the silent hour
+of meditation they concentrate their thoughts upon its grace. The cup of
+earthly love, even the noblest, is often dipped in Pyriphlegethon, and
+the draught it offers scathes the palate until its finest sensibility is
+for ever dulled. Those who have quaffed this liquid fire can no longer
+understand his mood who leaves the roses and the wine to toil through
+deserts in search of limpid water. They think him madly ungrateful for
+God's good gifts, a fool abandoning joy proved and present for a shadow
+far and incomprehensible. But they who have not denied themselves are no
+longer fit judges of him who has renounced. They cannot know that by
+this renunciation the senses are thrice refined, and receive as a vital
+influence the stellar beam which falls chill and ineffectual upon a
+grosser frame. They cannot believe that this love from the infinite
+distance wields as mighty a force over renunciant lives as the near
+flame of passion over their own. But, for all their denial, it lives and
+puissantly reigns. It reigns in very truth predominant, this ideal love
+to which space exists not and propinquity is nothing; and it will have
+none for its subjects but those who by bereavement or aspiration or
+intense purity are inly prepared for its dominion.
+
+Happy therefore are the shy if in the midst of their tribulation they
+are guided to the gateway of so bright a kingdom. It may well be that we
+must first be led thither by some dear-remembered and virgin form once
+almost ours through earthly love, but now joined to us only by an
+imperishable and mystic union. Our sight may at first need the embodied
+beauty to give it the finer powers by which the revelation of the ideal
+grows familiar to us, but is at last attainable without mortal
+intervention by an immediate flight of the soul. Until that late day of
+enlightenment we must still be set upon the celestial path by a touch
+of human tenderness; a pure yet sensuous yearning must be ours when we
+are first girded to the ascent. If there are beings which attain the
+fulness of the ideal love without the first inspiration of a fair
+earthly form I know nothing in creation to which they may be likened,
+nor had I ever part in so rare an enfranchisement. The vision that now
+entrances my soul first arose from a living, breathing form radiant with
+earthly brightness and instinct with every charm which brings men
+fawning to the feet of women. The sensuous frenzy which lovers sing was
+also mine, the tremor of the heart, the vibration of the very life; the
+deep seventh wave of passion rioted through me also. But from the first
+amazement of the shaken being it was not given me to pass through
+satisfaction into tranquillity; I was held long in a whirl of trouble;
+in the anguish of denial I learned initiation into the mystery which is
+eternal and supreme.
+
+It is good for some of earth's children that passion should be stayed
+before it makes ashes of the fancy; for if it does but touch for a
+moment only to be withdrawn for ever, it does not destroy, but by its
+meteoric passage kindles the imagination with the glow of an
+incorruptible flame. It is with them long enough to brand upon memory
+the image which, though never renewed before their bodily eyes, by its
+very severance from perception puts on an immortality of virginal grace.
+Love is understanding, said the poet of Heaven and Hell, and love
+ennobled through renunciant years shall at the last encompass the world.
+The sensuous glow that first quickened the heart of youth is transmuted
+into a purer fire akin to that which moves the spheres.
+
+To know this truth is their compensation who are swiftly withdrawn from
+the warm radiance of earthly love. They are stricken, but before passion
+blinds them are rapt into a high solitude, whence, if they truly love,
+an infinite prospect is unrolled before them. They know desire; but as
+their passion was hopeless in this world, their steps were mercifully
+set upon a new path, whereby the bodily semblance of the beloved became
+the symbol of spiritual comeliness, alluring the beholder into the
+peace of a serene and unworldly mood. A thin and rarefied ideal, you
+say, a mirage which no wayfarer can approach: experience rejects these
+subtleties, and to these creations of a dream human affection was never
+given. True, to hearts established and content in happy unions, to minds
+preoccupied with the near cares and pleasures of a home, our distant
+visions may appear frail structures wrought in mist by homeless fancy.
+But for the exiled heart they are not such, but verities of abiding
+inspiration. For the ideal love did not die with Plato, but came again
+in mediaeval Italy, and who shall say that even our material age has
+banished it from the earth?
+
+No indeed it is not dead, the ideal love, but indwells, a redeeming
+power, wherever there are desolate hearts and minds to be updrawn and
+united by its ministry; a power so lustral in its nature, that no abject
+and despairing thought creeps into its presence but is purified and
+exalted by its regard. This love brings hope and cheerful constancy;
+with a shining falchion it affrights into their natal darkness the
+monstrous forms of despair, and lends to all work a secret charm of
+chivalry. It sustains that high anticipatory mood to which life is but a
+preparation, and the bees buzzing round the honey-flowers seem poor
+things toiling for an inessential gain. Because it is mystic and
+transcendental it is the predestined guide of all whom fate holds
+removed from earthly love. This is the old device of the world's
+failures, you say, to trick themselves out in Plato's mantle or the
+schoolman's cowl, and conceal their spite beneath the pretensions of the
+mystic. But I answer that the causes which moved the Greek and the
+Florentine are still at work among mankind to-day; they have never
+ceased, however much obscured by the glare of triumphant luxury or the
+stress of miserable toil. Often when disillusion has laid bare a soul,
+this love which did but slumber awakes to contest with envy or despair
+the possession of a wounded heart. I aver that any exile from the
+happier earth whose heart is pure, if he invokes this love with ardent
+faith, may unbar his door and feel that it has passed his threshold.
+Let us never be persuaded that the ideal world is far from this earth of
+ours, or that the way to it may not be daily traversed by him who has
+submitted to the heavenly guide. Not even the close entanglement of
+common cares can avail to keep such an one from his love; but as Bishop
+Berkeley is said to have been able to pass in a moment from the
+consideration of trifling things to the throne of thrones and the seats
+of the Trinity, so this lover shall overpass with easy and habitual
+flight the barriers that hold most men life-long prisoners.
+
+For to the Spirit that is chastened and endures there is given a power
+of flight and poise, by which, if it abandon itself to the celestial
+wind, it may instantly remove from the deeper planes of life, as a bird
+by the mere slanting of its wings is carried in proud quiescence into an
+upper region of the air. He shall know instant release from the leaguer
+of disillusion and vain solicitudes; in the light of one beautiful and
+compassionate countenance the unquiet memories of failure shall give up
+their exceeding bitterness.
+
+And though the style and instinct of modern life are hostile to such
+love, though in prosperity it is ignored and in adversity often
+overborne by a vain uproar of lamentation, yet even in a self-indulgent
+and furious world it still draws many to the severe exaltation of its
+service. We cannot approach the heights where a Plato and a Dante walked
+with ease, but far beneath upon the lower slopes we can draw a breath of
+new life as we fix our weaker eyes upon the glory which they saw so
+near. Although the men who have there ascended are a supreme company, we
+may yet presume to follow; for let it never be said that the gods have
+reserved for surpassing genius the consolation of which lesser men have
+so much deeper need. But he who would reach a serener air must press
+forward strenuously; for as a mountain may have one bare and northern
+slope, and another sunlit and clothed with verdure, and yet there may be
+a path on each side to the summit, so it is with the ascent to this
+felicity. One lingers amid pleasant groves and laughing waters;
+another, undistracted by the beauty of any lower zone, but fixing his
+eyes upon the far summit, crosses the chill rocky slopes, never feeling
+the warmth of the sun and only seeing his brightness reflected from the
+highest peak. Though the ways of the two travellers lie far apart until
+the end, their endurance may be crowned with the same reward; but he who
+knew no dalliance and plucked no fruit has from the beginning seen the
+goal clearly, and lived steadfastly in its distant promise. And do you
+tell me that this is not love or joy, you who saunter in the verdant
+southern valleys breathing a present happiness with the perfume of a
+thousand flowers? Your way may lead you upward after long vicissitudes,
+but endurance will more swiftly fail you for the last most arduous
+ascent. Very love is of the heights, and he whose thoughts have long
+been thither exalted will breathe with least pain the attenuate upper
+air.
+
+To this pilgrimage the diffident are foreordained; it is their happiest
+hour when they take staff and scrip and set out in earnest for the
+shrine built among the mountains. The gardens of Armida are not for
+them, nor the warm breezes fragrant of fruit and flowers; but the vision
+of a far peak flushed at sundawn draws them onward, and strength and
+peace are increased upon them throughout the great ascent. He is still
+too rich for pity to whom renunciation brings these high and enviable
+hours.
+
+But the heavens are not opened every day, and the adept of these
+mysteries must walk the dull round of common life like other men, not
+warmed as they are by the glow of constant friendship, yet cheered by
+intermittent flames of remembrance and of hope. The real life of the
+diffident is cunningly hidden from those around them, for whom, indeed,
+it is wont to have faint interest; but before you who have often sought
+me out through fair and foul weather, I may venture to undo the pack of
+small resources which brings variety and distraction into lonely days.
+
+Firstly, I still dare to haunt the forecourts of philosophy. Into her
+inner courts I may not penetrate, lacking the leisure which her whole
+service demands; yet the loiterings which I may still enjoy are to me
+like voyages into a foreign country, and give my mind the healthful
+enjoyment of change; they are not long enough to bring that whole
+detachment from daily life which, in my case, might prove a perilous
+advantage. All that I need for common use is a simple rule based on a
+few fundamental thoughts to give me a course upon the wayward ocean, and
+though it be full of error as the Almagest, yet it shall surpass the
+thumb-rules of Philistia. It must be a doctrine which allows imagination
+her right and durable career, and therefore not be monist. For
+materialism is too wildly imaginative at the start: like a runner who at
+the outset overstrains his heart and thereafter runs no more, the
+follower of this creed, by his postulate of a blind impersonal Law,
+exhausts his power of speed and plods henceforth eyes downward over
+flattest plains of dulness. That my mind may remain curious and alert in
+isolation, I must conceive in the universal scheme a power that does
+not alone impel, but also draws me forward. For were it true that the
+sum of things blunders from change to change, swept by blind force into
+uncharted voids, I should abandon myself in despair to that hopeless
+course, and drift indifferent to the direction or the end.
+
+Let me rather believe that if each several idea is compacted by my
+active intelligence out of some vast system of relations, then only a
+supreme intelligence akin to man's can brace together the whole system
+or universal sum of things. For this earth, yes, and all the complex of
+the spheres, exist to me imperfectly as idea alone, nor can I conceive
+them any complete existence apart from a kindred but omniscient mind.
+Each advance in human knowledge should then be an infinitesimal approach
+towards the supreme comprehension; and the aspiring race of man is
+justified in that inchoation of long hope which is folly to the single
+life.
+
+I would also believe that new relations between things may be detected
+not merely by the staid and ordered process of collating abstractions,
+which is science, but by swifter and more genial methods of intuition.
+
+    "Hurrah for positive science,
+    Long live exact demonstration!"
+
+cried Walt Whitman, exulting over the filed fetters of mankind; and let
+us all echo the cry, nor ever forget the razed Bastilles of
+superstition. But there glimmers a wealth of truth in the penumbra
+beyond our lanterns to which science will creep too slowly without the
+aid of imagination. Yet this truth may be seized by swift sallies into
+the darkness, and assured to us as it were by some dim apperception of
+the soul, when the whole personality is made tense, and subtly
+anticipates the cosmic argument. Life is too short to renounce this
+daring: the sense of kinship with the All-Consciousness sanctions if not
+commands the right adventure.
+
+It was this feeling which led William Blake to exclaim in his impulsive
+way, that to generalize is to be an idiot, that direct perception is
+all, and the slow process of the inductive reason a devil's
+machination. This method of intuition is to the more sober method of
+science as the romantic to the classical spirit in literature,
+permitting to the individual mind a licence of noble vagrancy. But it
+must be a law for the ordinary intelligence to exercise the two apart,
+else it will fall into sick fancies of excitement, and by abuse of wild
+analogies lose the vital art of balance and sane comparison. Only the
+greatest minds, endowed as it were with some divine genius of
+extrication, may dare to practise the two together. So Leonardo da Vinci
+drove inference and intuition abreast without disaster, and gathered
+from purple distances of thought their wildest and most splendid
+flowers. To him, as has been well said, philosophy was something giving
+strange swiftness and double sight, clairvoyant of occult gifts in
+common or uncommon things. The doom of Phaeton awaits those who now would
+follow that marvellous course; but the poetic observation of
+resemblances in things remote, which lent so rich a colour to the
+science of the Renaissance, may yet be trained in all our minds; and
+the philosophy which trusts in the slow suffusion of the worlds with
+intellectual light will bless and encourage its reasonable growth.
+
+Such a philosophy brings also a living sympathy with art. For the artist
+ever sees a perfection of truth beyond his rendering, yet always calling
+for expression; there is something eternally missed by his highest
+effort, and he can never know complacency. The philosophy which
+conceives the gradual growth of form through consciousness towards a
+perfection infinitely removed, yet in its remoteness drawing up our life
+as the moon sways the tides--this surely is the artist's wisdom.
+Idealism is like love, {apora porimos}, holding us as it were in touch
+with the intangible: it will have us conceive the Absolute without that
+helpless absorption in thought which changed Amiel's life from a
+fountain to a vapour: it would keep us near the surf and confluence of
+things. Its function is not to give any mysterious transcendental
+knowledge, but to serve culture "by suggesting questions which help to
+detect the passion, and strangeness and dramatic contrasts of life."
+And not only to bring suggestions, but repose, by granting to eyes
+wearied with minute concerns the contrasts of vast times and spaces, the
+majestic idea of the Whole; to change the focus and variously dispose
+the perspectives of familiar things.
+
+An old watchmaker, whose window overlooked a wide meadow, used ever and
+again to lay down his instruments to gaze out upon the expanse of green,
+pasturing upon it a wandering vague regard, and absorbing from it an
+assuagement of his wearied senses which, he said, served him more
+effectually after these bright interludes. The province of Metaphysics
+should be to us as to this wise workman his field; not a place to dream
+our days away in, but for occasional resort; in which we may forget the
+infinitesimal in healing visions of broad space and colour. I counsel
+every lonely man to satisfy what has been described as the common
+metaphysical instinct, and according to his powers to become a
+metaphysician. There is no discipline which so well consists with
+solitude, none which so instantly enfranchises the mind from the
+tyranny of mean self-interest or vain and envious polemics. Men do not
+grow sour and quarrelsome about the Absolute: everything that is
+polemical is inspired, as Michelet once said, by some temporal and
+momentary interest. The man who has climbed to the Idalian spring comes
+down benevolent. He does not grudge this toiling ant his grain, that
+snarling dog his bone, but is content to live serene, in the certainty
+that his soul has great provision, and that though all human things are
+small, each is worth its while. Into his hand there is given a scale by
+which life is known in its fair proportions; a tranquil joy, disturbed
+neither by dirges nor Epinician odes, is poured into his heart and
+exalts him above distraction. He respects himself as akin to that great
+Self whose perfection shall one day be known; he understands the passion
+for the ideal through which men die young; he wonders at envy and in the
+happiness of enfranchisement would have all men free.
+
+The pages of this Almagest are for the exceptional hour; but daily, as
+one bookish from the nursery, I read much in many directions. For if
+books are called the best friends of happy men, to the sad they are
+saviours also. And when I remember too clearly what I am, I turn perhaps
+most often to Lucretius. For of all those who have taken up the pen to
+assuage the miseries of men, it is he who sings most bravely of the
+great endurance. This austere enthusiast, whose soul was never fused in
+the fire of friendship; who went apart, as it were, amid thunders upon
+the lonely heights; who, without any lover, yet loved his kind so well
+that all the years of his maturity, how short and splendid a period,
+were poured forth in one song of human consolation,--this man for all
+the madness of his creed, was yet aflame with a wisdom to be called
+divine. That calm face, lit with one desire--to drive the furies from
+the way and soothe the frightened children of men, is ever among the
+nobler countenances which fancy summons about my bed. Over the anxious
+heart they flow, those slow cadences, so vibrant yet so magnificently
+passionless, until the nerves of pain cease to throb, and fear shrinks
+as a taint impossible to the patient of such a physician. It is not his
+to intimidate or denounce, to evoke visions of lurid hell, to linger
+over dire vaticinations, or apportion to each his grade of torment, but
+with cool fingers to smooth the hair back from the forehead, and in
+grave, tender accents to say: Sleep now, for it was a dream.
+
+Landor, in a fine passage, compared the merciful tolerance of the Roman
+poet with the pitiless ire of Dante, contrasting in respect of the
+quality of mercy these two poets, one in their austere perfection, but
+so different in their vision of death, and judgment, and ultimate
+reward. The seer of lost worlds has written his own defence, and was
+indeed but attacked to point the sharp antithesis; but Lucretius, though
+he owes it to a literary feint, is very finely praised. And to me it
+seems that his compassionate mood increased upon him just because he was
+not emulous of the world's gifts or earnest for its pleasures, but
+withdrew from the press, and lived out his few great years
+contemplating apart the vicissitudes of orbs and men. He did not wait in
+ante-chambers or sit at wedding feasts; but severing all entangling and
+intricate threads of observance, followed the voice which called him to
+solitary places of illimitable prospect. It was not through disillusion
+or injustice, or wounded pride, that he walked aloof; but loneliness was
+his birthright, and from the hills and headlands to which solitude
+allured his steps he saw the dust of mad encounters rise to heaven, and
+the rent sails of foundering galleys. He saw, and could not but be wrung
+with pity for man deafened to wise counsel by the noise of vanities, and
+fiercely conspiring to precipitate his doom. As he went by shore and
+upland, there gathered in his mind those resonant hexameters of warning
+or consolation, those similes from the life of husbandry and dumb
+things, which, set like diamonds in clay, lend to the most arid
+arguments their own incomparable splendour, or that homelier beauty
+which instantly pierces the defences of the heart. Not diffident as we,
+but of a nature so infinitely absent and reserved that in the legend
+his wife must concoct a philter to remind him of his love, he is of all
+the pagans the best companion for our angrier moods. An archaic and
+elemental serenity is upon his language and thought, rebuking our
+unprofitable petulance; if emotion gains him he finds utterance in those
+tremendous periods "where single words seem to gather out of the deep
+and to reverberate like thunder." As the reverberation dies away and the
+clouds are pierced by the sun, the world is seen in new lights through
+an air clear as upon rain-swept mountains.
+
+As my reading is incessant, so also is my writing. For the happiness of
+man is in his fertility, and of barrenness comes the worst despair. To
+be happy is to have issue--children, or books written, or things
+beautifully wrought, or monuments of goodness to live after you, if only
+in the memory of some tiny hamlet of the folded hills. This is the law
+of life that Diotima knew, by which flower and tree, animal and man,
+fulfil the end of their creation; and man in nothing more surely proves
+his lordship than by his many-handed hold upon posterity. For the lower
+creation is procreant in one way, but man in many; who may have
+offspring not of body alone but of mind and heart, and be so redeemed
+from the grim dismay of childlessness. The greatest human happiness is
+to be fertile in every way, a thing granted rarely in the world we know;
+the next, perhaps, is that of the parent who gives all of himself to his
+family, not tilling any field beyond the charmed walls confining his
+desire. The author sure of his fame, the born artist, the benefactor of
+his kind, are also happy, seeing their offspring grow in years and in
+the power of making a brighter world.
+
+But he is miserable who, aspiring to follow these, feels his force wane
+within him while he remains yet fatherless; or who has sons stillborn,
+or weakly, or dishonoured. I question whether sheer degradation into
+evil brings more pain to man than such sense of sterility or frustrate
+parentage. But it is no small part of human redemption that none need
+know the interminable misery. A man may have neither sons nor genius,
+but in the dark hour he can go out and give, if it be only a penny or a
+kind word, and on that foundation build a temple to receive his
+thanksgiving. To give of yourself is good. This is that grand agreement
+and oecumenical consent to which those words _quod ab omnibus quod
+ubique_ in deed and truth may be applied. For this reason meanness is of
+the deeps, and avarice groans in the lowest zone of hell. And if there
+are faces of blank and permanent despair upon your path, be sure that
+these are not masks of whole men, but of those who wilfully abstained
+from joy and have received the greater damnation. My children are mostly
+writings, poor weakly creatures dying inarticulate and unchristened,
+tenderly remembered by myself only, but at least no nuisance to the
+world. I loved them at their birth, I hold them in remembrance, though
+they were ever of a hectic and uncertain beauty.
+
+The comparison of children with branches of the olive is not the mere
+ornament of a Bible verse, but the wisdom of one who knew both tree and
+child. For as children are bright creatures of swiftly changing moods,
+so are the olive leaves in the blue southern air. I once read of an
+artist who essayed to paint a group of olives and a cypress growing
+before them. Against their silvery leaves its dark burnished form stood
+finely mysterious, the contrasting grey lending it a depth of almost
+sable colour; all was propitious for his work. Then suddenly, the air
+being to all seeming quite still, the grey-green leaves began to shake
+and quiver, until each olive tree was like a silver bonfire, tremulous
+with a thousand waves of white flame flowing and following along the
+branches. It was a revelation and swift effluence of life, perplexing
+and full of charm. The brush was laid down, the moment of inspiration
+gone, before the capricious leaves ceased their quivering to be robed
+once more in grey, casting on the ground that translucent shadow which
+tempers the sunlight only, and does not spoil it of its gold. In the end
+the canvas was covered, but with a sketch far less true and beautiful
+than the painter's first happy vision. Even so of all our children few
+attain the perfection of our dreams. While we look, some influence comes
+upon them and they are changed, some breeze, born we know not where,
+stirs them to their heart of joy while we stand perplexed; innumerable
+laughter of leaves, a rushing and a shivering in quick answer to a mere
+breath, silence as swift when unperceived it dies away--these are their
+replies to our silent invocations. We cannot follow the swift course,
+but are quickened with a glad rejuvenescence, the true prize and guerdon
+of parentage. They may grow old or die, or bring us sorrow; it is enough
+that once they so lived and stirred a pride within us. Let Hedonist and
+idealist dispute, let one worship pleasure and another wait on the
+intangible joy, but in the fathering and mothering and the bringing up
+of young children, of the flesh, the mind, or the spirit, lies the
+natural happiness of men and women. It is a joy which outlasts
+disillusions; it rests surely upon achievement and deserts which lie
+ponderable in the archangel's scales. For it is certain that he who
+creates as best he knows best serves God, the world and himself, and
+what system of Ethics has conceived a more perfect rule?
+
+All young life is instinct with such a beauty and trustfulness, that
+though he himself may have no part or lot in its creation, and be dumb
+or awkward in its presence, a man will be the brighter for having
+passed, if but for a moment, out of the darkness of his own course into
+the radiance within its orbit. To the diffident this is an especial
+grace. For children by some deeper intuition understand us as their
+parents cannot do; and when all the world is cold will often smile upon
+us with happy upturned faces. It is one of my consolations that the
+little players in the parks come running to me rather than to others
+with their eternal question after the exact hour of day. For I reflect
+that though my face grows wrinkled and drawn with years, there must yet
+hover something about its ugly surface which tells of a good will
+within. There was a time when I found the children's question
+importunate, and drew out my watch ungraciously; but now I feel
+disappointment if during their hours of play I can walk my mile without
+answering one of these high-pitched inquiries.
+
+To have the confidence of children is indeed a thing of which a poor
+wanderer may be proud, a credential confirming his self-respect, and
+worthy one day to be presented at the gate of heaven. Once during one of
+my worst hours of desolation, when I was tramping across the fields, I
+found a little maid of seven picking primroses on the edge of an old
+orchard. For some time I stood watching, so charmed with the grace of
+her movements and the beauty of the spring sunlight on her golden mane,
+that I lost all consciousness of present trouble, and beyond her fairy
+form began to see vague visions of lost happiness returning. As I stood
+thus forgetful and looking absently before me, I suddenly felt a touch
+which recalled my scattered thoughts: she had come to me and put her
+hand in mine. I think in all my lonely life I never felt so swift a
+thankfulness as that which suffused me then: the memory of it is always
+with me, and now I never see a happy child engrossed in its little task
+of duty or pleasure without thinking to myself there is one of those who
+truly have power to remit sins. I will not repeat the fond things often
+written about children. Not all of them are like the infant angels of
+Bellini or Filippino Lippi or Carpaccio; some indeed are strident, pert,
+without charm or candour, not doves but little jays; but for the
+loveliness of those who have smiled upon me, whether rich or poor,
+whether wild or tended flowers, I shall ever hold the whole company
+dear.
+
+Whether I read or write, or go painfully upon difficult paths of
+thought, like many other men whom the world dismays, I win a larger
+tranquillity and a clearer vision from an increased simplicity of life.
+I know that to use the word asceticism of one's daily practice is to
+incur the judgment of all those whom the world calls good fellows, whose
+motto is live and let live, or any other aphorism of convenient and
+universal remission. To them asceticism is the deterrent saintliness
+which renounces all joy, and with a hard thin voice condemns the
+leanings of mankind to reasonable indulgence. The ill-favour drawn down
+by ecclesiastical exaggeration upon the good Greek word {askesis}, which
+means nothing more than the practice of fitness, has prejudiced men
+against all system of conduct bold enough to include it in their
+terminology.
+
+Kant's chapter on the Ascetic Exercise of Ethics is a fine defence of
+that training of the heart and mind which has no affinity with the
+morbid discipline of hair shirt and scourge. "The ascetic exercise of
+the monasteries," he says, "inspired by superstitious fear and the
+hypocritical disesteem of a man's own self, sets to work with
+self-reproaches, whimpering compunction and a torturing of the body. It
+is intended not to result in virtue but to make expiation for sins, and
+by self-imposed punishment the sinners expect to do penance, instead of
+ethically repenting." And again--"All ethical gymnastics consist
+therefore singly in subjugating the instincts and appetites of our
+physical system ... a gymnastic exercise rendering the will hardy and
+robust, which by the consciousness of regained freedom makes the heart
+glad."
+
+This is sound doctrine, neither ungodly nor inhuman, the word of a man
+in whose veins the warm blood yet flowed. Few pictures of venerable age
+please more than that of the old philosopher of Koenigsberg drawn for us
+by de Quincey in one of his miscellaneous Essays. There we see Immanuel
+Kant, leading his tranquil sane existence, giving his friends sober
+entertainment, talking brightly of mundane things, practising "the
+hilarity which goes hand in hand with virtue." For me the very
+eccentricities of his daily routine have a fascination, and I read them
+as a devout Catholic reads many a quaint passage in the _Acta
+Sanctorum_. How wise was his nightly habit, as he settled himself in bed
+before falling asleep, to asseverate with a sigh of thankfulness that no
+man living was more contented and healthier than he! Here is the true
+asceticism, the child's glad abandonment to nature maintained and grown
+articulate in philosophic age.
+
+To this beauty of plain life I cannot attain. But my own life is as far
+removed as may be from brilliant or luxurious pleasures, and I divide my
+time between the country and the town. This I do from obedience to
+reason rather than fashion; for while the country has my love, the city
+is more remedial to my peculiar pain. There the shy man may have what
+Lamb called the perfect and sympathetic solitude, as opposed to the
+"inhuman and cavern-haunting solitariness," to which his infirmity
+inclines. There he and those who rub shoulders with him on the pavement
+can "enjoy each other's want of conversation." No creature with a heart
+can jostle daily with his kind, but he wins some consciousness of kindly
+feeling. The very annoyances and constraints of propinquity are in their
+own way disciplinary, and insistent, uncongenial persons, like glaring
+red buoys with clanging bells, serve at least to keep us in the fairway
+of navigation. And in a city there are voices of cheerful exhortation
+always echoing in the higher air above the roar and the trampling, which
+in the interludes of coarser sound, or by our removal into some quiet
+court or garden, may be heard repeating their stirring watchwords of
+endeavour. We are told that no word spoken ever dies, but goes
+reverberating through space for ever. It is my fancy that only evil
+words escape into the outer void, which eternally engulfs their
+profitless message, while words of hope and helpfulness are not thus
+lightly sundered from the world that needs them, but hover still near
+above us, descending with every lull of the tumult into those ears which
+are strained towards them. The laden air of towns carries not the rumour
+of the battle only, but by the presence of these fair echoes held within
+it, gives back to the soul more health than ever it drew from the body.
+With this thought I am often consoled as I go my way through gloom and
+clamour and unloveliness, finding a Providence in places which else seem
+abandoned in the outer desolation.
+
+Nor is the vast city to be valued only for what it gives, but for its
+own wonderful self, an obvious point which need not be expanded into a
+tedious circle. The shy will naturally draw more advantage from so rich
+a field of contemplation than those who seldom walk alone. In London I
+often map out a course of wandering which in its varied stages shall
+remind me of the change in progress or decay of particular arts or
+industries or different quarters of the town. Reading their meaning in
+the light of history, I make bare walls speak to me with a personal
+voice. Let any one but acquaint himself with the styles of
+ecclesiastical or domestic architecture, or of monuments of the dead, or
+with the history of the thoroughfares he frequents, and he will be
+pleasantly constrained to reflection upon those who have gone before
+him. As he stands in the shadow of an ancient church he will think to
+himself: "By this very wall Chaucer may have stood." As he walks amid
+the reverberating ravines which are city streets he will say: "Here
+along green and silent paths the Roman legionary marched when Hadrian
+ruled the world." When once the faculty of observation has been awakened
+to a permanent alertness, the desire to be widely read in history of men
+and their arts will become irresistible; and through the knowledge
+gradually amassed it will be thought a sorry chance if any ramble of
+wider compass yield no vision which in comeliness or deformity tells its
+tale of changing fortune. To appreciate human work, and the conditions
+under which it is born, is to exult in abounding sympathy with this
+man's conquest over things poor in promise, or to condole with that
+man's failure to do the best that in him lay.
+
+As I walk by the strand of Thames, my fancy sees upon one flood the gay
+barge gliding upward to green fields, and the black hull bearing down
+the prisoner to the Traitors' Gate. If I go up Holborn, I remember that
+where this traffic now thunders John Gerard tended his Physic Garden
+when Elizabeth was queen. I know where Sarah Siddons lived; and where
+William Blake died; and my curious wanderings are now so far extended,
+that when I turn to the great book of London I seldom find a tedious
+page. The places where people strove and suffered evoke before me the
+forms of men and women dead but unforgotten, and if I am alone I am not
+aware of loneliness.
+
+London is the central wonder, but wonderful also in spirit and
+suggestion are those old places which ring it round: these I often
+frequent at every season, and carry their portraits over my heart. Let a
+man once learn to know them, and his memory shall never starve; he will
+never forget the hour when first they yielded him up their secret. Many
+moments of intimate delight do I treasure in remembrance, moments when I
+was suddenly aware that all previous impressions were the poor
+gatherings of purblind eyes; but I will only tell you of one, which may
+suffice to show what riches lie ever open to those who roam in solitude.
+
+It was mid-April and the close of a cloudless day. I had been to the
+Observatory hill at Greenwich to see the sun set over London, looking
+for such a transfiguration of the grey city as should reveal its line of
+warehouses lying along the horizon in a mist of splendour like the walls
+of the New Jerusalem. So I had seen it before, marvellous and refined in
+unearthly fire: but to-day, in a sadder mood, and hungering more deeply
+for the vision, I looked out to the west in vain. For the wind had set
+in from the east, and driven back upon the town a zone of iron-grey
+smoke, ragged along its upper edge like a great water blown to spray,
+but merging below with those gloomy and innumerable buildings. Upon this
+the sun, which all day had ridden in a clear air, was slowly falling,
+losing radiance with every minute, until as it approached that gloomy
+spray it was luminous no more, but a dull red orb whose light, like a
+flame withdrawn into the consumed heart of coals, glows for awhile
+beneath a gathering film of grey. In a few minutes it descended, as if
+sadly and of resolution, into the murky sea, where for a moment its red
+curves seemed to refine the smoke into translucency; but at last the
+dun waves gathered upon it dark and voluminous, drowning it so deeply
+that the clearer sky above was instantly robbed of the wonted
+after-glow. Some pale reflection there was in the upper heaven, ensuring
+a time of twilight, but no glory; and smitten with a congruous sadness,
+I went down to the river. But there, pacing to and fro as if upon a
+quarter-deck, with the water lapping upon the wall beneath, I lived one
+of the happy hours of life, redeemed from disappointment, and carried
+far into a magical world.
+
+The flood tide, which had turned for more than an hour, was now racing
+down wilful for the sea, though the breeze ruffling its surface seemed
+to thwart and stay its eager course. And on the surface, indeed, chafed
+and broken into innumerable ripples, the wind triumphed; but as one
+looked westwards towards the city, it was clear that the sullen strength
+of stream and tide had the mastery. For over the broad curving reach,
+lit like white unburnished silver with the reflection of the pallid sky,
+there glided forward a line of barges each with every red sail set, and
+as silent as if they sallied from a besieged city. One by one they hung
+out their lights, the lamps swaying and casting yellow bars over the
+quivering water, until in perfect silence all passed down before me.
+Each in turn attaining the lower bend where the river sweeps northward,
+went about and stood for the Middlesex shore; and then for a moment the
+wind seemed to overcome the tide, for before the boat could win new way,
+lying almost broadside across the stream, the breeze held her
+motionless, like a tired bird on a windy day when it flies out from the
+shelter of the wood. It was but for a moment, and then the blunt bows
+glided forward towards the north bank, and another barge succeeded in
+the gathering gloom.
+
+And so it was until all were passed. The departing light drew the
+colours from the red sails and the silvery brightness from the river;
+all forms became outlined in black upon what uncertain light remained.
+Two men put off in a boat from an anchored ship; the mingled sound of
+their oars and voices came with subdued tone as if out of an infinite
+distance. Then the whole reach lay bare and silent for a while, and only
+the little waves lapping upon the stone steps played an accompaniment to
+my dream.
+
+The hour and the place compelled to reverie, and memory consenting to
+their evocative charm, I peopled the still scene with the forms of those
+who had swayed or shared the fortunes of this land; imperious Elizabeth
+and gentler Mary, the slight heroic figure with one sleeve pinned empty
+on the breast, and all those who, going down to their business in deep
+waters or returning therefrom, have saluted with melancholy or with joy
+these towers and this wooded hill. I thought of the lads playing beneath
+these trees, and so inbreathing the spirit of this place that for them
+there was no career but to follow the river down to ocean, and ocean
+himself in his circuit of the world. I thought of the veterans returned
+from that quest, old Argonauts of a later day, now clustering round the
+Hospital fires and perhaps recalling amid tales of havens and high seas
+the very morning when they first dropped round the bend and passed into
+the new world beyond. For this Thames is such an avenue and entry into
+marvellous life that earth can show no greater rival, none more rich in
+dignity or in the multitude of its merchandise. And if the flood of that
+merchandise shall cease, and the stream once more go lonely to the sea
+or carry coracles, it cannot be again as if it had never borne great
+ships, or swung the Admiral's galley on its tide.
+
+It is good for an Englishman to stand here and listen to the brown
+waters lapping on the old walls and caulked timbers; to hear, as an
+under murmur, voices of Lechlade and Bablockhythe, for all intervening
+leagues of wood and meadow not altogether lost: before this persistence
+and continuity of youth to feel high thoughts stir within him and
+solemnize the nativity of new resolve. You cannot feel beneath your feet
+these old stones trodden by the great generations of your own blood and
+kindred, and not be moved to walk uprightly, to be approved by their
+shades as one not unworthy of such descent. For whether such worn
+stones be in the aisle of some great minster, or here, paving this
+narrow way for hurrying feet, the inspiration is as strong and the
+thankfulness not other. For this is a place of meridian, the navel of
+our land and empire; the wind searching its alleys has no usual voice,
+but as it were a deep and oceanic sound, according with old ballads and
+stories of the sea.
+
+I lingered leaning upon the rail until the tide had fallen from the
+wall, tracing along the narrow pebbled foreshore a clear marginal line
+of irregular contour, now sinuous, now straight, but palely luminous
+like a silver tone on some enamel of old Italy, a line drawn by a master
+draughtsman, in its inevitable and sure perfection wholly satisfying the
+eye. With the dark bank it vanished towards the great city, now marked
+in the upper sky by a hovering brightness of light escaped beyond the
+smoky rampart to tell the effort of innumerable lamps beneath, all
+pouring their blurred and vain effulgence to the disdainful stars.
+
+Moreover, the city will give the shy man all the consolations of art,
+philosophy and literature of which his education or experience may have
+made him worthy. He can see great pictures or read great books at little
+cost, and find in them the truest of friends in need. It is so obvious
+that a solitary of any culture will find relief with such companions,
+that here I take for granted his resort to their aid, and will only
+mention two resources from which the real recluse often draws less
+advantage than he might, I mean orchestral music and the drama. Any man
+of feeling who hears a great symphony ceases to be self-centred with the
+first movement; he goes out of himself, and rides upon waves of sound,
+exalted by this majesty of collective effort. No other music thrills his
+whole being like this, which sweeps him with all around into the very
+course of changing fates. In the confluence of dim hopes and passions
+which rise above the harmonies like smoke-wreaths riding the red flame,
+the soul glows interfluous with other souls and is elated with the
+inspiration of their presence. He bears arms exulting who never had
+comrades till now; his will is absorbed in confederate joy and human
+force unanimous. In this abandonment of the whole being, the diffident
+know their fellows near, and in the ecstasy of shared emotion learn the
+full measure of their humanity. Philosophers in all ages have known and
+taught the power of music in compelling ten thousand to the love of one,
+and so ennobling an infinite multitude in the glow of a common emotion.
+Sound was the first instinctive language, one for man and winds and
+waters; and music, which is the development of this primeval converse,
+leaving to grammars the expression of cold and abstract thought, has
+gathered about her in her mountain caverns the echoes of all sighs sad
+or passionate, of all inarticulate cries born of aspiration or desire,
+and there blended them into eternal harmonies which at her word flow
+forth and join the hearts of men.
+
+Indeed, that swift responsiveness of feeling which music thus awakes is
+a gift beyond gems of Golconda; not youth's swift effusion cheaply given
+and soon forgotten, but the vibration of a heart stirred in sympathy
+with some profound note of life, as the dyed pane stirs and quivers
+when the organ gives forth its deepest tones. Sentiment is a draught of
+old wine passing into the veins and enriching the blood, until in the
+generous glow all the privations and the stints of loneliness are
+forgotten. Pure emotion is like righteous anger, which may be lawfully
+indulged if the sun go not down upon it; and as he who shrinks from all
+fire of wrath lives but a vaporous life, so he who will never be moved
+is proud of a poor crustacean strength, like the limpet, winning
+darkness in exchange for dull stability. As for me, in the propitious
+hour when the heart longs for expansion, I give it honourable licence,
+and quicken its unfolding by spells of magical words. At such times I
+invoke the aid of passionate souls, not shrinking even from the vain,
+provided that they loved greatly and give great expression to their
+humanity. Such is that wild lover of George Sand whose _Souvenir_, for
+all its rhetoric, charms like an incantation. The ancients quenched the
+ashes of the pyre with red wine, as if the blood of the god-given vine
+could hearten the spirit that yet hovered near. Over my ashes let no
+wine be poured, but read me such verses high and valiant, that if my
+soul yet lingers undelivered from the earth's attraction it may be
+regenerated and set free into a braver life.
+
+And let the lonely man be an assiduous frequenter of the playhouse, for
+the drama will also open the world's heart to him, and that by a plainer
+and less elusive speech. Seated in the theatre among his kind, he knows
+a deeper pleasure than other men; for while to these the changing scene
+brings remembrance or anticipation of familiar things, to him it reveals
+whole vistas of life which, except in dreams, his feet may never tread.
+When the curtain is rung down, and he goes out into the street, for a
+while at least his existence is transformed. All those front doors
+aligned in their innumerable sequence, which in daylight or darkness he
+passes when he wanders alone, are now no longer barred against him; they
+open at the touch of his fancy, and he sees within the light of
+homeliness, where father, mother, and child weave round warm firesides
+their close conspiracies of affection. At last he knows what is passing
+behind those bars; like an old family friend he takes his place by the
+fire and receives as of right the confidences which in his real lonely
+life never find their way to his ears. He helps the lovers to build
+their cloudy castles, he reasons away the parents' care, he goes
+up-stairs with a shaded candle to look in upon the children sleeping.
+Good women unlock the jewel-caskets which are their souls; happy maidens
+are sisterly with him; strong men grapple him to their hearts and call
+him friend. He that was vagabond has now innumerable homes, and of the
+faces that fleet by him out of doors there are always some which seem to
+give him greeting.
+
+These secret and unavowed alliances transfigure the unlovely streets,
+and light in the cavernous blank houses many a glowing and familiar
+hearth. As he goes on, careless of distance or direction, he is now
+inwardly busy with fresh and delightful dreams. He plights his troth and
+earth is Eden; he imagines brilliant hours for the dream-children who
+go by his side, holding each of his hands. And if the visions change,
+and sorrow or sin pass in over a familiar threshold, what generous
+abnegation, what pity, what righteous wrath does he not know, until the
+plastic power of fancy moulds out of this poor recluse a man like other
+men. Amid these visionary sympathies time goes quickly by, and returning
+to his voiceless dwelling he has stored up such wealth of dreams that he
+can even endure the supreme test when the lonely man finds himself
+sitting in the wan light with no one near him to whom he is dear. Of the
+strength and peacefulness which bring him safely through that hour of
+desolation he owes much to the players, who have shot the drab texture
+of life with an infinity of bright and tender hues, so that he can bear
+to turn it in his hands and look upon it with a wistful pleasure. I say,
+then, let the shy man frequent the playhouse, and there facet and
+burnish his dulled mind until it reflects, if it may not touch, the
+many-sided world.
+
+For the discipline of sympathy, for the quickened sense of comradeship
+in work, for the very presence of that unloveliness which compels
+sympathy, I dwell more months in the town than in the country-side. But
+remembering what Nature did to save me, and owing her an endless debt of
+filial duty, I return to her in the summer days, and to make up for the
+long months of separation cling nearer to her than most of her truant
+sons. For communion with Nature, the ideal joy of country life, is not
+attained by the sportsman or the mere player of games, who think of
+their bodies chiefly, and use as a means to rude physical vigour the end
+ordained for the fine contentience of body, mind, and spirit. Again I
+will pass by the obvious and familiar resources of outdoor life, and
+speak only of such as men are unaccountably prone to neglect.
+
+There is a way of learning nature which in this wet land is mostly
+followed by tramps and vagrants; the way of sleeping beneath the stars.
+So far is this joy from the thoughts of most men, that even George
+Borrow felt a strange uneasiness when for the first time the darkness
+descended upon him in the open country. I think we carry with us all our
+lives that fear of night with which nursery tales inspired our
+childhood; it reinforces the later more reasoned fear of boisterous
+weather, or of the men who walk in darkness because their works are
+evil. We shrink from night as a chill privation of daylight, as a gloom
+which we must traverse, but not inhabit; the distrust becomes with years
+instinctive and universal, and the nearest approach to friendly relation
+with night attained by most of us is a timid liking for the twilight
+hours. Yet as the sun rises alike upon the just and upon the unjust even
+so does he descend, and we put a slight upon Providence if we abandon to
+rogues and rakes that wonderful kingdom of the darkness of which by
+natural prerogative we are enfranchised. By never using our proper
+freedom, we give them prescriptive licence of usurpation, so that the
+hours in which the heavens are nearest to us are become the peculiar
+inheritance of thieves.
+
+I confess that on the night when first I set out to do without a bedroom
+I too felt all the force of the traditional mistrust. I heard human
+whispers in the wind, and saw the shadows of walls and trees as forms of
+men lurking to spring out against me. The movements of roosting birds
+startled me as I passed; the sudden silences startled me more. And when
+I had spread my gear on the ground and settled down to rest, the sense
+of exposure on every side made sleep impossible; time after time I
+seemed to hear footsteps stealthily approaching; and there was a
+strangeness pervading everything which to my nervous fancy was simply
+provocative of apparitions. This lasted many nights; and whether I
+established myself on the edge of a copse, or in the open grass, or in a
+hammock beneath two trees, I continued a prey to the same uneasy
+wakefulness. But then, as if satisfied of good faith by such
+perseverance, the night began to wear a friendly aspect, the shadows
+gave up their ghosts, and the breezes became the expected messengers of
+slumber.
+
+When the lonely sleeper-out has grown familiar with the moonlight and
+the darkness, he is admitted into the number of earth's favoured sons;
+for lying like a child upon her bosom, he hears her heart beating in the
+silence, and wakes to see her smiling in her beauty like a queen
+apparelled. To no man slumber comes more gently than to him; and his
+uprising is as that of a child exulting in the cloudless day. Health and
+innocence return to him, and his one sorrow is that he has lived into
+maturity without continually partaking of these sane and natural
+delights. Remorse is his that for all these years he has feared the dews
+and shrunk from the bland night airs; and remembering the needless
+imprisonment of a hundred chambers, he mourns over the irrecoverable
+hours which would have rooted his life more deeply in tranquillity and
+strength. But the June sun is up, and the birds are singing: he strides
+with light step over the grass, watching the rabbits play in the glades,
+and in unison with a host of fellow-creatures singing a welcome to the
+dawn. When it is time for him to think of home and he comes once more
+beneath a doorway, he has a mind refreshed by the quietude of dim space,
+and a heart replenished with innocence and good-will. He who so sleeps
+hates no man, and will go upon the dullest way free from petulance or
+despair. The scent of the rich earth is in his nostrils, and the
+clearness of morning air has passed into his eyes.
+
+I have made my lair in many places since I first kept house with Nature.
+I have couched in heather by the pines of hills far above the Sussex
+Weald; I have lain in dry furrows or on the margin of a copse, or in the
+parks of the children of fortune, for whose welfare, in gratitude for
+their unconscious hospitality, I shall ever pray. But of all wild
+resting-places I have known, the openest are the most delightful. To see
+the whole sweep of the stars; to lie on the shorn ground free of all
+that overshadows or encompasses or confines; to breathe in the great
+gulf of air; to stretch unhindered limbs--this is an initiation into a
+new life, a pleasant memory in the long glooms of winter. Let nothing
+come between you and the stars, that they may look well upon your face,
+and haply repenting of some ancient unkindliness, draw you at this
+rebirth a new horoscope of blessing and fair fortune. And if slumber
+tarries when you lie in an open spot, you may consciously ride the great
+globe through space, and like the shepherd watching by his flock in the
+clear night while star rises after star, grow aware of the great earth
+rolling to the east beneath you.
+
+In these still hours of night or early dawn there steals upon the
+charmed mind an Orphic sense of worship and inexplicable joy. For here
+on bare uplands and wooded hills, where the starlight rains down through
+the silence, or the day, welling up over the rim of the downs, glides
+fresh from the lips of ocean, a calm river of light, here is the place
+of Dionysus, of him born from fire and dew, Zagreus the soul of clean
+souls and wild lives, his heart a-quiver with vague sadness drawn from
+all the worlds, Eleutherios, loosener of heart and lip, the regenerator,
+the absolver, the eternally misunderstood, whose true followers are
+priests of impassioned pure life, whose wine is not juice of grapes but
+the clear air ambient upon the hills. Here when sleep is shamed away by
+expectant awe, the whole being grows one with all-environing life;
+personality glides into the stream of cosmic existence, lost and found a
+thousand times in the trance and ecstasy of dim divine feelings beyond
+the power of words inexpressible. It is miracle; it is religion; it is a
+feast of purification above pomps or mysteries, a cleansing ritual
+without victims and undefiled. In such hours, and in such hours alone,
+man and things are joined in a supreme utterance of life high and
+humble, transient and immortal, by which the fellowship of all
+existences within the universe is made real and significant to the
+initiate mind. For in the day fences are about us, roofs and towers
+impend above our heads, we are cribbed in streets and markets, the din
+of rhetoric or sordid bargaining fills our ears. Or if we withdraw into
+some still chamber, yet the walls built by hired hands offend, and the
+doorposts of sapless timber; no high influence can penetrate to us save
+through the close court of memory, and compared with the breezy starlit
+meadows, how poor an avenue to the soul is that!
+
+And the exuberant sun of noon distracts, and the multitude of his beams
+is troublous, for what does sight avail if the things of the heart's
+desire are lost in immeasurable perplexities of light? For in the high
+day the quivering bright air is more opaque than the dim spaces of
+night, so tranquil and severe, or the glowing kingdoms of the morning.
+At the springing of the day the eyes open upon awakening flowers, giving
+filial heed to the marvellous earth which waits in patience for a human
+greeting. I like the passage in which Chaucer tells how in May-time his
+couch was spread in an arbour upon the margin of the grass, that he
+might wake to see the daisies unfold their petals. Sleeping thus, he
+also must have known those intervals of slumber when a sense of some
+impending wonder grows too strong for sleep, and all nature seems
+calling to high vision. Often I have been thus awakened, not by noise
+or movement, but as it were by some strange prescience of beauty
+constraining me to rise and look. Once I was drawn some distance round
+the corner of a copse, and there, low in the sable-blue of the sky, in a
+rivalry of intense but dazzling light, the crescent moon hung splendid
+over against a great constellation which glittered like a carcanet of
+diamonds. They seemed to speak together as if in some scene or passage
+of celestial drama, nor did I know which was the diviner speech, the
+moon's unwavering effulgence or that leaping coruscation of the stars.
+Nothing stirred on the right hand or the left, but earth and air were
+hushed, as if before that colloquy all sound and motion were
+miraculously holden. Tall trees brown with densest shadows were massed
+upon one side, obscuring half the heaven, and lending by their
+contrasted gloom that sense of wizardry in natural things which enchants
+the clear summer nights when the air is still.
+
+This is but one among many visions of which the remembrance makes life
+worshipful; and it is pity that at the hour of their coming well-nigh
+all whom they should delight lie chambered within brick walls, lost in
+sleep or in the mazes of unprofitable thoughts. For these things in
+their rare appearances are more precious than an hour's slumber, were it
+dreamless as a child's, or all the watches of luxurious unrest. If
+another summer is given me I hope to take the road when July has come
+with balmy nights, and wander days at a stretch with all I need upon my
+shoulders. Then I shall know the real joy of vagrancy, caring little
+where night finds me, and quickening my steps for nothing and for no
+man. I shall linger in every glade or on every hill-top which calls to
+me to stay; I shall tell all the hedgerow flowers, and lean over the
+gates to watch the foals playing. The brooks shall be my washing-basins,
+and I shall quench hunger and thirst in the tiled kitchens of lonely
+farmsteads. If I hear the shriek of a train I shall smile when I think
+of its cooped and harried passengers, and plunge devious into some
+pathless wood, in whose depths the only sounds are the tap of the
+woodpecker's bill or the measured axe-strokes of the woodman. I shall
+fling myself down to rest under what tree I will, and pulling from my
+pocket the book of my choice, I shall summon a wise and cheerful
+companion to my side as easily as ever oriental magician called a jinn
+to do him service. I shall once more be commensal with wild creatures,
+and wonder that solitude was ever a pain; I shall be healthily
+disdainful of the valetudinarian who lives to spoil either his body or
+his soul.
+
+These are the wanderings which henceforward will chiefly suffice to my
+need. For since I roamed my fill in other continents the gadfly may no
+longer sting me out of my tranquil haunts. In their youth lonely people
+suffer more than others from that restlessness which fills the mind with
+sudden distaste for the present scene, and a fierce longing to be
+somewhere far away. Others are preserved from it by the love of home;
+but we, in our poverty of attachment, listen more readily to the
+depreciating voice.
+
+I remember how deep had always been my longing to look out upon the sea
+from some Greek island, and how one day, when this desire was granted,
+and I walked along hills set high above the blue AEgean, I was seized
+with an instant yearning to be instead upon Ranmore Common in Surrey.
+Yet at that moment a life's ambition was being fulfilled; I stood in a
+scene of incomparable beauty, gazing down on those deep azure waters
+whose voice is always to me as a lament for wandering Odysseus; the
+lower slopes were rich with olive trees, powdering with silver the
+tilled lands round a beautiful monastery lying there in its enchanted
+rest. Dark cypresses rose amid white walls of villages, by the contrast
+of their gloom making all bright colours glorious; away to the left,
+where the shore verged westward tracing inimitable curves between field
+and sea, lay slumbering a little white town with minarets and walled
+gardens and tiny haven--a very place for Argonauts; and yet my thoughts
+turned to the chalk downs of England and honeysuckle crowning the
+unfruitful hollies. _Sed quia semper abest quod aves praesentia
+temnis_;--Such desire has distracted Roman minds; the perversity is very
+old; and perhaps only children find no disillusion in the accomplishment
+of a dream.
+
+For our feet have one country and our dreams another, and there is no
+constancy in us. It is not alone in the bartering of one earthly scene
+for its fellow that we suffer the sick thirst of change; but into the
+rarest hour of achieved ideal to which hope promised her supreme
+satisfaction, the same wayward longing will often find a way; as in a
+sacred place amid the purest and most exquisite meditations of the soul,
+there will suddenly flit inexplicable shadows of irreverence, with
+echoes of incongruous voices from the abandoned world.
+
+But now as the years pass and the penury of human love has made the home
+woods and fields more dear, I feel that this unrest is drawing to its
+end. For as the seasons pass over the uplands and the meadows, clothing
+them with new splendours between the seed-time and the harvest, no
+vision rises upon the memory dearer and more beneficent than theirs. As
+the lover's fancy dwells upon the image of his beloved in this or that
+environment, and thus or thus arrayed, so I see the woods and fields in
+the various glories of the year and know not in which garb I love them
+best. They have heard my laments, my confidences, all my broken
+resolves: they are bound to me by so pure and intimate an affection that
+all those grander wonders of the world should never draw me again from
+this allegiance. Not for the vision of Himalaya piercing the heaven, or
+the sunsets of Sienna, or the moonlight on the Taj Mahal, or for any
+other beauty or any wonder shall I weary of the cornfields framed in
+elms or the great horses turning in the furrow against the evening sky.
+
+For with the growth of years our desires wander less, and are mercifully
+contracted to the scope of our wearying powers. We haunt the same old
+places and want the same old things, dwelling amongst them with an
+increasing constancy of devotion. For we find that year by year the old
+places and things are not really the same; something has touched them in
+our absence; strange still agencies have intervened, long silences of
+dissolution and the ineluctable fate of change. And so that perfect
+sameness which we find unattainable takes on the quality of ideal and
+demands the grown man's devotion, as the change that is forbidden casts
+its resistless spell over the guarded and tethered child. The eyes of
+youth are on the far end of the vista, those of age upon the near; the
+old horse that has drawn the coulter through the clay is glad for the
+four hedges of the paddock which irk the growing colt's desire. When
+Richard Jefferies was asked why he walked the same lane day after day,
+at first he was at a loss for a reply; but gradually the reason became
+clear to him. It was because he had become aware of the iron law:
+_Nothing twice_: he wanted the same old and loved things not twice but
+endlessly; he was yearly more eager to be with them, and paint indelibly
+upon his memory their delicate quiet beauty, their soft and perishable
+charm.
+
+That is how I also feel, as with the return of summer I wander out into
+the old meadows and climb the familiar hills; I find myself hoping that
+nothing is changed, and am stirred with sweet anxieties of reminiscence.
+And surely within the enchanted boundaries of the counties where I
+ramble, there is variety which not the hundred eyes of Argus could
+exhaust. These fields and woodlands in high summer feast all the senses
+with a surfeit of delights. How good it is to exercise in all its range
+the fine mechanism of the body, suffering each part of it to indulge its
+own hunger after beauty; to feel the texture of petals, and draw the
+long grasses through the fingers; to breathe an air laden with the scent
+of blossoms, passing from uplands fragrant with bean-flowers into
+untilled regions odorous with pines; to hear the birds' chorus at
+sunrise and the distant sound of reaping; to see innumerable marvels;
+the belts of clover mantling wine-dark in the wind; the poppies in the
+standing corn, the carmine yew-stems on the downs; above you the soft
+grey clouds delicately floating; below you, as the day declines, some
+distant lonely water emerging in its glory to be the mirror and refuge
+of all heaven's light; to remember the gorse and broom and look forward
+to the royal purple of the heather--all this is a consummation of pure
+life, a high, sensuous pleasure penetrating to the inmost soul, and of
+such exceeding price that to disdain its offerings or to pass incurious
+before them, is to live in the blindness of the tribe of Genseric.
+
+In such wanderings the mind is filled with slow and seasonable thoughts,
+lasting as the trees and buildings of the country-side. Old deliberate
+contemplations, perceptions after long regard ingathered from abundant
+nature, theories leisurely compacted in sunshine or storm, to stand in
+the fields of memory, crowned with beauty by the indulgent years. So in
+the visible meadows stand the ancient barns, with roofs of umber tiles
+parcel-gilded with old gold of lichen, and crowning their seasoned
+timbers "as naturally as leaves"; restful structures of a quiet age,
+capacious of dim space, unvexed by the glare of a hundred summers.
+
+And if you ask what profit is here for one who must do battle in the
+loud world, study for a while the artifice and industrious policy of
+plants by which they attract to themselves the visitants they need or
+with most masterful defence repel the importunate advance, and you will
+return to the societies of men, even to their parliaments, enriched with
+arts of prudence beyond the practice of Machiavel. Examine the dog-rose
+upon the hedge, how by putting forth thorns it raises itself to the
+light and ranges irresistible along the leafy parapets; see how the
+flowers adapt their form and colour to the convenience of the bee or the
+predilections of the bird; consider the furze armed with spines against
+browsing muzzles, and be near when it casts its seed wide upon the
+earth; and then say if among states or governments there is a wiser
+economy or an intelligence more provident of its end. I myself have the
+conceit that if time, revoking my sentence of superannuation, should
+restore my lost years and add youth to the wisdom learned along the
+hedges, even I, a very profitless weed, should not again so uncivilly
+decay, but flower to another June and see my seed multiply around me.
+
+Perhaps, if that might be, I should strive to learn thoroughly, and
+bring science to bear upon experience. But, as I am, classifications and
+dissections are repellent to my fancy. I cannot get to the hearts of
+flowers by any Linnaean approach, but go rather by the old animistic way,
+still honoured by Milton through his Genius of the Woods:
+
+    "When evening gray doth rise I fetch my round,
+    Over the mount and all this hallowed ground,
+    And early, ere the breath of odorous morn
+    Awakes the slumbering leaves."
+
+So I greet the blossoms of hill and upland and water-meadow, knowing
+them all by their country names, and sometimes fancying that they know
+me back: all that is lacking is the tutelary power to guard their growth
+and prolong their bright and fragrant lives. What fine old names they
+have, great with the blended dignities of literary and rural lore;
+archangel, tormentil, rosa solis or sun-dew, horehound, Saracen's
+wound-wort, melilot or king's clover, pellitory of Spain! I cannot
+coldly divide so fine a company into bare genera and species, but
+imagine for them high genealogies and alliances by an imaginative method
+of my own: to me the lily and the onion shall never be connections.
+
+If I must read books on flowers, I take down such a one as Nicholas
+Culpeper's _Complete Herbal_, written from "my house in Spitalfields
+next the Red Lion, September 5th, 1653." For here is a man who attempers
+science with the quaintest fancies after the manner of his generation,
+and delightfully misinterprets the real affinity of the flowers and the
+heavens. "He that would know the operation of the herbs must look up to
+the stars astrologically," says this master; and so to him briony is "a
+furious martial plant," and brank ursine "an excellent plant under the
+dominion of the moon." Of rosemary he says, "the sun claims privilege in
+it, and it is under the celestial ram," and of viper's bugloss, "it is
+a most gallant herb of the sun." The bay-tree rouses him to real
+eloquence, though not for Apollo's sake. "It is a tree of the sun and
+under the celestial sign of Leo, and resists witchcraft very potently,
+as also all the evils that old Saturn can do to the body of man; for
+neither witch nor devil, thunder nor lightning will hurt a man in the
+place where a bay-tree is."
+
+Reading in this old book of the ordinance and virtues of the familiar
+herbs, I escape from the severities of botanical science into a maze of
+queer fancies, well suited to those retrospective hours when we love
+best what we least believe. And by the pleasant suggestion of astrology
+I am led on to contemplate the starry heavens, which I do in the ancient
+pastoral way, peopling them with mythical forms and connecting them with
+the seasonable changes of rustic toil. I forget for the moment all the
+discoveries of Copernicus and Kepler, and see eye to eye with
+Cleostratus of Tenedos who nightly watched the stars from the sacred
+slopes of Ida.
+
+Much as the companionships of nature have meant for me, I would not have
+any man content himself with these alone. It is not right to live the
+slave of Pales, or become the rhapsode of docks and nettles. To be all
+for the lower life, were it the fairest, is derogation; and Har and Heva
+before they may enter into their kingdom of the flowers must first be
+fallen spirits. But continually in the interludes of human endeavour to
+rebathe the mind at these clear wells does indeed exceedingly purify and
+strengthen against the returning and imminent encounter. Those long
+retreats at Walden may not often be repeated, for man is either risen
+too high or too far fallen to live well in the sole company of animals
+and flowers. What sociologists call the consciousness of kind is as
+vital to man as the consciousness of self; and to pine for adoption into
+an alien kind is vain on this side transmigration.
+
+Not seldom my wanderings in town and country lead me to quiet
+churchyards, or to those vast cemeteries where the living have
+established the dead in avenues and streets of tombs after their drear
+suburban fashion. Solitude has ever persuaded to the contemplation of
+death, and in these silent places I feel no shock of sadness but am
+rather possessed by a familiar spirit of peace. As I wander from path to
+path, my fancy is not lamed by mournful thoughts, but finds suggestion
+amid the poor laconic histories by which these headstones appeal to him
+that passes by.
+
+It is with most men a natural desire to take their last rest in some
+green God's acre, far from the smoke and turmoil of towns, lying in a
+fair space amid a small company, where there is a wide prospect of
+tilled lands, and the reapers cut the swathes against the very
+churchyard wall. And this is my most usual aspiration; yet there are
+times when I would not shrink in thought from the Valley of Ezekiel, and
+would be content to be written a mere number in some city of the dead,
+where at last after all the loneliness of life I should no longer be
+kept apart, but be gathered to my fellows where they lie in their
+thousands, and be received a member of their society. And though I well
+know that it matters not a cummin-seed whether my bones are washed to
+and fro on the bed of the sea or my ashes cast to the winds of heaven,
+yet I humour this fancy, and find a quiet pleasure in the thought that
+death at least may end this isolation.
+
+And what if the propinquity of these poor remains be gage and promise of
+a sympathy of souls unveiled and unhidden by false semblances of the
+body? Then should death indeed be the crown of a long desire and give me
+at the last the fellowship into which life denied initiation. Surely, as
+Coleridge dreamed, there is a sex in souls, which, disengaged from the
+coarse companionship of the flesh, shall see into each other's crystal
+deeps. Thence, in new life, when the last recondite secret is withholden
+no longer, there shall come forth those qualities and powers that
+ennobled man and woman in mortality; they shall come forth in all their
+several strength and beauty, divinely animate, and reflecting upon each
+other bright rays and soft colours invisible upon these misty oceans of
+our navigation.
+
+It is not terrible to think, at times, on death, for that _danse
+macabre_ which troubled the fancy of our forefathers is now danced out,
+and the silent figure that knocks at every door comes not as a grinning
+skeleton but as one of more gentle countenance than any art can express.
+The natural change, which to William Blake was but the passing out of
+one room into another, is well personified in the merciful figure with
+the kind eyes, coming at the sounded hour to lead away into quietness.
+My solitude has taught me to know well those noble efforts which art has
+made to lift from our bowed backs the burden of the fear of death: I
+like to look upon that youthful Thanatos carved upon a column from the
+temple of the Ephesian Diana, and every year the red leaves of autumn
+persuade my steps to that village rich in elms where lived one who also
+saw death so, and laboured to draw the frightened eyes of men from the
+hour-glass and the skull to the gracious vision of the deliverer and
+friend. There hands which were dear to him have raised a place of
+leave-taking upon a green slope, a house of farewell set upon the shore
+to receive the last pledges from the living to the absolved and
+unburdened dead.
+
+When first I saw Compton it was a cloudless noon in August, the day of
+days in which to come alone into this silent place. Out of the fiery
+heat beaten from wall and path like a blinding spray of light, it is a
+passage into a dimness of cool space, an air glaucous as the shade of
+olives. There from the circuit of a dome look down kind faces of
+immortal youth, in form and habit too tranquil for our life, but made
+homely to us by the mercy in their eyes, and some quality of the white
+soft hands which draws all weariness and all pain towards them. To me it
+was as though some furious struggle in the waves were over, and swooning
+out of life I had awakened upon a floor of translucent ocean, where, in
+a gracious and tempered light, beings of a compassion too intense for
+earth, each with a gesture that was not yet a touch, were charming all
+the bruises of the lost battle away. Surely this is true vision of
+things to come, and to such mercy we shall awaken. It cannot be that
+when the eyes reopen they shall see the forms of dark apparitors, or
+that the ears shall hear AEacus and Rhadamanthys speaking in dim halls
+their cold, irrevocable dooms. No, but there shall be a pause and
+respite upon the way from one to another life, and none may be conceived
+more grateful than this rest, as it were a sojourn beneath waters of
+Eunoe, where a flood of dear memories foreboding good shall absolve us
+from the mortal sin of fear.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Turning back over these pages, I am conscious that I have failed to give
+real experiences their proper life. Describing solitude I have been
+dull; I have fixed the rushing flames of emotion in poor flamboyant
+lines. I have written far more than any reader but yourself will have
+cared to follow; but now at any rate the confession is over, and in the
+future I shall work, and use my sight for a worthier end than
+introspection. It has been said that the tale of any life is
+interesting if sincerely told; and it may be that the most ordinary
+lives have the advantage, because it is the common experience which
+touches most hearts. For the greater part mine has been a common life,
+unglorified by hazards in the field, or bright fulfilment of ambition;
+it had been better for its peace if it might wholly have kept the
+comfortable, usual way.
+
+I sometimes wonder whether the printing of these pages will reveal to me
+any kinsmen in affliction, for such there must be going westward alone,
+and I wish that for a moment we might foregather as we pass, to compare
+the marvels of our isolation. Then perhaps I might be urged to higher
+effort, hearing stories more pitiful than mine, tales of silent courage
+under ban of excommunion to shame me from the very thought of despair.
+Poets have metaphorically given colours to souls; mine, I feel, is only
+grey, the common hue of shadows; but it was steeped in gloom by a
+veritable pain and evils really undergone. And as I reflect upon what I
+have written, and try to imagine it read by some brisk person utterly
+content with life, I can well understand that the whole thing would
+appear to him incredible, too preposterously strange for belief, a
+rigmarole of sick fancies beyond the power of hellebore. So be it: I
+expect small comprehension and no mercy, for indeed I have written
+caring little for such consequence, yielding to that human thirst for
+utterance which only confession can slake; as one eases pain by a moan
+though there are none to hear it. It is not altogether a grateful task.
+For hardly, and then only in a fortunate hour, to one whose years and
+feelings have been interwoven with his own, will even a healthy man tell
+the tale of his hidden emotion; and mine is the deeper reticence of a
+habit which has ever held closely to the recipe of fernseed. To entrust
+a confidence to one of unproven sympathy, is to risk a profitless
+embarrassment. It has been most truly said that both parties to such
+impulsive avowals, whenever they afterwards meet, must feel a constraint
+as of confederacy in misdemeanour.
+
+I have hope that though I came late to the steady labour of the
+vineyard, I may yet earn my wage and begin the new day with the rest.
+Like Joseph Poorgrass I can now almost regard my diffidence as an
+interesting study, and agree with the rustic man of calamities that
+destiny might have made things even worse. Certainly the pain grows less
+fierce; I can go more readily among my fellows for all but social ends.
+For those who live much apart learn at last to see men not as
+individuals but in groups: to them it is the type which counts, the
+_forma specifica per formam individualem translucens_, of which the
+scholastic jargon speaks. Those with whom I come in casual contact
+appear to me now in a vague, diffused light like the atmosphere of some
+other world. Dwelling upon none with the eyes of intimacy, and passing
+swiftly from this to that, I find each but the harmless variant of a
+species; if I lingered or came too near, doubtless old apprehensions
+would oppress me still. It is a disadvantage of this outlook that the
+fascination of detail is lost, and that I have less sense for the
+personal in life. But if I grow old I shall regain the interest in
+particular things and persons with which age is consoled amid many
+miseries; for while youth grows earnest over some riddle of high art or
+the occultation of Aldebaran, age is happily absorbed in the arrangement
+of a room or discussing the destinies of a single household.
+
+Meanwhile, though uncongenial to my kind as entering little into their
+pleasures, I like to be near them in their grief or happiness, standing
+unnoticed in the wind of their fortune's wheel. At least I am not soured
+or malevolent, and when there is dancing toward, I am in the crowd upon
+the margin of the green. I have abandoned social obligations because I
+am unfitted to perform them well, and society high and low exists by
+their cheerful fulfilment. But I no longer rail at social law or decline
+to see anything but evil in conventions devised by the wisdom and
+refinement of centuries. If I refuse invitations and leave calls unpaid,
+it is because I am socially bankrupt: were I solvent I should redeem all
+debts.
+
+I decline therefore to denounce Chesterfield and deify Thoreau: there
+was exaggeration in both men, and though my sympathies are rather with
+the recluse of Walden pond, it is quite probable that Chesterfield was
+the more useful of the two. I am a bad player, I have not the high
+spirits or the conversational skill which each should contribute to the
+social game. And in almost any sport the incompetent confer a benefit by
+standing out: at least, that is the opinion which I hear the average
+player express. If I lived in the backwoods where any guest is welcome,
+it might be my duty to act differently. But my ways are cast in places
+where there is no need for social press-gangs, and the highways and
+hedges are left unsearched. If therefore by abstention I gain a
+qualified peace for myself, and confer positive benefit on others, I may
+go my way without serious reproach.
+
+And I did wisely not to marry, for I should have clung too closely to my
+study for the happiness of any woman. I once saw an advertisement in
+the newspaper inserted by a discontented young wife whose husband was a
+recluse and would not take her out of evenings. She wanted to
+communicate with congenial people, and, like a desperate sailor
+marooned, was driven to wave her signal in the sight of the casual eye.
+This frank confession of abandonment made a profound impression upon me.
+I thought to myself, "Master recluse, you are a pilferer and have
+filched a life. I am yet more solitary in my estate, and if I followed
+your example, should be guilty of a greater wrong." There are, indeed,
+hours when I feel embittered at the thought that for one innocent defect
+a whole life should be amerced of joy; the finality of loss appals: all
+is so irrevocable; _le vase est imbibe, l'etoffe a pris son pli_.
+Avoided not without cause by those who were my natural associates, I
+grow impenetrable of access, and even in my own family unfamiliar. The
+resentment that welled up in the man who told the story of Henry
+Ryecroft obtains the mastery, and I feel one in spirit with that lonely
+analyst of disillusions. Sometimes a worse darkness gathers round, till
+I long for one of those intense and all-absorbing creeds which somehow
+seem to tend the brightest hearth-fires which earth knows: for
+philosophy, though it invented the void, never built a little Gidding.
+
+It is then that I feel like the suppliant of the old Babylonian prayer,
+"one whose kin are afar off, whose city is distant," and all that
+appears before my sight is one scroll of wrongs which this evil heritage
+has inflicted upon me. It has made my best years rich in misery; it has
+cut me off from marriage; it has compelled me, one hating vain
+complaint, to live querulously in the optative mood. Neither poverty nor
+sickness could chastise more heavily; for poverty is strong in numbers
+and sickness rich in sympathy, but diffidence reaps laughter and is
+alone. When such thoughts win dominion over the mind I could envy what
+sufferer you will his most awful punishment. For in his agony be sure
+there is movement and action; his limbs are torn, yet he is dragged
+onward: by his very writhing in the bonds he confesses his life. But I
+lie in some dead waste where nothing moves and all is mist without
+horizon, lost in an abhorred blankness of dismay to which no positive
+suffering may be likened. Thither comes no fierce provocation to quicken
+into Promethean scorn; life lies whelmed in blackness unlit by flashes
+of defiance or the cold splendour of disdain.
+
+Empedocles once described his dream of retribution for the last
+unutterable offence. For thrice ten thousand years the sinner roams
+estranged from bliss, taking all mortal shapes, wearing with tired feet
+all the sad ways of life. AEther sweeps him out to Ocean, Ocean casts him
+naked on the shores of Earth, Earth hurls him upward to the flames of
+Helios, and he, relentless, spurns the victim back to AEther, that the
+dread cycle may begin anew. But to be for ever driven in this majestic
+whirl of change, to receive the chastisement of all elements and survive
+unbroken for a new revolution of the wheel, this is but an assurance of
+the very pride of life, it is the charter of an invincible manhood. The
+doom which in truth befits the unutterable sin is rather the blank pain
+without accident or period, without point or salience to draw from
+stunned nature her last energies of resentment. It is well for me that
+this misery is short-lived, and that either by thinking on that ideal
+love I know the miracle of the twenty-ninth sonnet, or, struggling with
+instant effort out of the toils, try to see myself as I appear to
+others, one who should scorn to sit in thirst when there are wells yet
+for the seeking.
+
+It is a strange life to lead in this pleasureful world; and if when it
+is over I were condemned to live again, coming like Er the Armenian to
+that meadow where the lots are thrown down for each to choose his own, I
+am already decided what character I should elect to play. I should
+neither cast myself for a protagonist's part nor again for that of a
+dumb actor in those backgrounds I know too well; but just for a plain
+manly character, strong to face all fortunes and rich in troops of
+friends. There should be no more evasion or dreary wrestling of mind
+with body; but life should move to a restrained harmony, and no elusive
+wind should carry half the music away.
+
+As for what remains of this present dispensation, I shall know how to
+endure, trusting that the years may fade finely, like the figures in an
+old tapestry, and that the end may come to me as to the old gentleman in
+Hans Christian Andersen's story of the Old House. And I have this
+advantage over other men, that while they have the whole cornucopia to
+lose, I can but be deprived of the dregs in its pointed end. For in what
+can there be further punishment? On others, men of happy pasts, dismay
+may fall as the ways are darkened before them. But surely I shall be of
+good cheer as I come into the land of the fierce old robber Age; for,
+stripped long since by a more subtle and insatiate despoiler, I shall
+possess nothing of worth to draw his covetousness upon me. So many joys
+did my very youth renounce; so many pleasures the Harpies swept from my
+place at the spread board of life; such gags and fetters held me while
+others danced and sang, that I was the sad familiar of evil fortune
+before my companions were acquainted with her name. That leaden weight
+which brings others low, by a nice adjustment of the scales shall raise
+me for the first time to their equality. And then, as one experienced in
+bereavements, of themselves they may seek my company; and I, so long the
+useless and estranged, may become at the close their helpful counsellor.
+
+If only that might be; if only upon the verge of night I might redeem by
+usefulness my lost unserviceable day. Then this grey life, so long sole
+and intrinsical to itself, should glow at last with some reflection of
+the sunset; once more I should know young ardours imagined lost and
+devotions miraculously born again.
+
+You will still encounter me now and then, moving absently through the
+crowd, or wandering in some green place, as in the garden of the
+Luxembourg Vauvenargues used to meet the wounded of the great battle,
+keeping apart in the narrower walks, and leaving the broad central ways
+for lighter feet than theirs. He often longed to have speech with them;
+but always they turned away, with the proud self-sufficiency of the
+disillusioned. Perhaps if he had succeeded he would have found that to
+some of them life had its consolations not unlike mine, and that they
+could still regard it as something more than a friendly process of
+detachment. But it is not our habit to expand; we are ever held back by
+the occult pride which the same soldier-philosopher has assigned to one
+of his imaginary characters, "cette fierte tendre d'une ame timide, qui
+ne veut avouer ni sa defaite, ni ses esperances, ni la vanite de ses
+voeux."
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Apologia Diffidentis, by W. Compton Leith
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK APOLOGIA DIFFIDENTIS ***
+
+***** This file should be named 27795.txt or 27795.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/2/7/7/9/27795/
+
+Produced by Meredith Bach and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/27795.zip b/27795.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..072c27b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27795.zip
diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6312041
--- /dev/null
+++ b/LICENSE.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8dcc05c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #27795 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/27795)