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 LIBRARY 
 
 OF THI: 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
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 or THB 
 
 DIVERSITY 
 
 DECORATED 
 
 BY 
 WILL H LOW 
 
 HAMILTON 
 WRIGHT 
 AABIE 
 
 [NEW YORK PUBLISHED BY DODD I 
 SWEAD AND COMPANY MDCCCXCIX 
 

 
 Copyright, IS9I, 1^3, 1898, ^ Dodd, Mead, and Company 
 
 1 1031 
 
 The University Press, Cambridge, U. S. A. 
 
IN THE FOREST OF ARDEN 
 
 Go with me : if you like, upon report, 
 The soil, the profit, and this kind of life, 
 I will your very faithful factor be, 
 And buy it with your gold right suddenly 
 
- 
 
AND I FOR ROSALIND" 
 
Under the greenwood tree, 
 Who loves to lie with me, 
 And turn his merry note 
 Unto the sweet bird s throat, 
 Come hither, come hither, come hither 
 

 m 
 
 ~"" 
 
 
 V, 
 
 Rosalind had just laid a spray of 
 apple blossoms on the study table. 
 
 "Well," I said, "when shall we 
 start?" 
 
 44 To-morrow." 
 
 Rosalind has a habit of swift deci 
 sion when she has settled a question 
 in her own mind, and I was not sur 
 prised when she replied with a single 
 decisive word. But she also has a 
 habit of making thorough preparation 
 for any undertaking, and now she was 
 quietly proposing to go off for the 
 summer the very next day, and not a 
 trunk was packed, not a seat secured 
 in any train, not a movement made 
 toward any winding up of household 
 affairs. I had great faith in her ability 
 to execute her plans with celerity, 
 but I doubted whether she could be 
 ready to turn the key in the door, bid 
 farewell to the milkman and the 
 butcher, and start the very next day 
 
 

 
 for the Forest of Arden. For several 
 past seasons we had planned this bold 
 excursion into a country which few 
 persons have seemed to know much 
 about since the day when a poet of 
 great fame, familiar with many strange 
 climes and peoples, found his way 
 thither and shared the golden fortune of 
 his journey with all the world* Winter 
 after winter, before the study fire, we 
 had made merry plans for this trip 
 into the magical forest; we had dis 
 cussed the best methods of travelling 
 where no roads led; we had enjoyed 
 in anticipation the surmises of our 
 neighbours concerning our unexplained 
 absence, and the delightful mystery 
 which would always linger about us 
 when we had returned, with memories 
 of a landscape which no eyes but ours 
 had seen these many years, and of 
 rare and original people whose voices 
 had been silent in common speech so 
 
 
many generations that only a few 
 dreamers like ourselves even remem 
 bered that they had ever spoken. We 
 had looked along the library shelves 
 for the books we should take with us, 
 until we remembered that in that coun 
 try there were books in the running 
 streams* Rosalind had gone so far as 
 to lay aside a certain volume of ser 
 mons whose aspiring note had more 
 than once made music of the momen 
 tary discords of her life ; but I reminded 
 her that such a work would be strangely 
 out of place in a forest where there were 
 sermons in stones. Finally we had de 
 cided to leave books behind and go free- 
 minded as well as free-hearted* It had 
 been a serious question how much and 
 what apparel we should take with us, 
 and that point was still unsettled when 
 the apple trees came to their blossom 
 ing* It is a theory of mine that the 
 chief delight of a vacation from one s 
 
usual occupations is freedom from V 
 the tyranny of plans and dates, and * 
 thus much Rosalind had conceded to j; 
 me. 
 
 There had been an irresistible charm | 
 in the very secrecy which protected our | 
 adventure from the curious and unsym- | 
 pathetic comment of the world. We $ 
 found endless pleasure in imagining | 
 what this and that good neighbour of | 
 ours would say about the folly of leav- 1 
 ing a comfortable house, good beds, and | 
 a well-stocked larder for the hard fare | 
 and uncertain shelter of a strange forest. | 
 44 For my part," we gleefully heard Mrs. | 
 Grundy declare, 44 for my part, I can 
 not understand why two people old 
 enough to know better should make 
 tramps of themselves and go rambling 
 about a piece of woods that nobody 
 ever heard of, in the heat of the mid 
 summer." Poor Mrs. Grundy! We 
 could well afford to laugh merrily at 
 
her scornful expostulations; for while 
 she was repeating platitudes to over 
 dressed and uninteresting people at Old- 
 port, we should be making sunny play 
 of life with men and women whose 
 thoughts were free as the wind, and 
 whose hearts were fresh as the dew 
 and the stars. And often when our talk 
 had died into silence, and the wind with 
 out whistled to the fire within, we had 
 fallen to dreaming of those shadowy 
 aisles arched by the mighty trees, and 
 of the splendid pageant that should 
 make life seem as great and rich as 
 Nature herself. I confess that all my 
 dreams came to one ending; that I 
 should suddenly awake in some golden 
 hour and really know Rosalind. Of 
 course I had been coming, through all 
 these years, to know something about 
 Rosalind; but in this busy world, with 
 work to be done, and bills to be paid, 
 and people to be seen, and journeys to 
 
 f 
 

 be made, and friction and worry and 
 fatigue to be borne, how can we really 
 come to know one another ? We may 
 meet the vicissitudes and changes side 
 by side ; we may work together in the 
 long days of toil ; our hearts may repose 
 on a common trust, our thoughts travel 
 a common road ; but how rarely do we 
 come to the hour when the pressure of 
 toil is removed, the clouds of anxiety 
 melt into blue sky, and in the whole 
 world nothing remains but the sun on 
 the flower, and the song in the trees, 
 and the unclouded light of love in the 
 eyes? 
 
 I dreamed, too, that in finding Rosa 
 lind I should also find myself. There 
 were times when I had seemed on the 
 very point of making this discovery, 
 but something had always turned me 
 aside when the quest was most eager 
 and promising; the world pressed into 
 the seclusion for which I had struggled, 
 

 I and when I waited to hear its faintest 
 murmur die in the distance, suddenly ther 
 -,! tumult had risen again, and the dream} 
 i of self-communion and self-knowledge;; 
 ? had vanished* To get out of the uproar 1 
 ;] and confusion of things, I had often fan- 
 | cied, would be like exchanging the dusty ; 
 I mid-summer road for the shade of thej 
 ; woods where the brook calms the day 
 ?; with its pellucid note of effortless flow, 
 I and the hours hide themselves from 
 the glances of the sun* In the Forest of 
 J Arden I felt sure I should find the repose, 
 | the quietude, the freedom of thought, ^ 
 $ which would permit me to know my- 
 self* There, too, I suspected Nature 
 had certain surprises for me; certain 
 secrets which she has been holding, 
 back for the fortunate hour when her 
 spell would be supreme and unbroken, 
 I even hoped that I might come una- 
 ware upon that ancient and perennial ||| ^ 
 movement of life upon which I seemed 
 
 

 *? r 
 
 
 always to happen the very second after 
 it had been suspended; that I might 
 hear the note of the hermit thrush 
 breaking out of the heart of the forest; 
 the soulful melody of the nightingale, i;J 
 pathetic with unappeasable sorrow* In f 
 the Forest of Arden, too, there were fl 
 unspoiled men and women, as indiffer- I 
 ent to the fashion of the world and I 
 the folly of the hour as the stars to the | 
 impalpable mist of the clouds ; men and | 
 women who spoke the truth, and saw 
 the fact, and lived the right; to whom.. 
 love and faith and high hopes were f 
 more real than the crowns of which 
 they had been despoiled, and the king 
 doms from which they had been re 
 jected* All this I had dreamed, and I 
 know not how many other brave and 
 beautiful dreams, and I was dreaming 
 them again when Rosalind laid the 
 apple blossoms on the study table, and 
 answered, decisively, "Tomorrow." 
 
 1 
 
 
Tomorrow/ I repeated, ^to-mor 
 row. But how are you going to 
 get ready ? If you sit up all night you 
 cannot get through with the packing. 
 You said only yesterday that your 
 summer dressmaking was shame 
 fully behind. My dear, next week 
 is the earliest possible time for our 
 going/ 
 
 Rosalind laughed archly, and pushed 
 the apple blossoms over the wofully 
 interlined manuscript of my new article 
 on Egypt. There was in her very 
 attitude a hint of unsuspected buoyancy 
 and strength; there was in her eyes 
 a light which I have never seen under 
 our uncertain skies. The breath of the ^ 
 apple blossoms filled the room, and a|1/j 
 bobolink, poised on a branch outside \ H 
 the window, suddenly poured a rap- ^ 
 turous song into the silence of thefO 
 sweet spring day. I laid down my ^ 
 pen, pushed my scattered sheets into v 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^: 
 
 
 
 
tmrn tfjf -^ . . Zy^l^&i. . , r ; x , "i^^ 4H 
 
 * 
 
 --., 
 
 the portfolio, covered the inkstand, and I 
 - ? laid my hand in hers. " Not to-mor- pj;, 
 row/ I said, " not to-morrow. Let us | 
 
 V^? i } 
 
 ^| go now. 
 
 4-. U 
 
n 
 
 Now go we in content 
 
 To liberty and not to banishment 
 
I have sometimes entertained myself ^jS 
 by trying to imagine the impressions fc 
 which our modern life would make j 
 upon some sensitive mind of a remote 
 age. I have fancied myself rambling y- 
 about New York with Montaigne, 
 and taking note of his shrewd, satirical^ 
 comment. I can hardly imagine himj 
 expressing any feeling of surprise, much I 
 less any sentiment of admiration; but*-/ 
 I am confident that under a masque of|| 
 ironical self-complacency the old Gascon = 
 would find it difficult to repress his;;; 
 astonishment, and still more difficult toj^p 
 adjust his mind to evident and impres-pv 
 sive changes. I have ventured at times ^^; 
 to imagine myself in the company ofijg. 
 another more remote and finely organ 
 ised spirit of the past, and pictured to ^| 
 myself the keen, dispassionate criticism ok ^ 
 Pericles on the things of modern habit 
 and creation; I have listened to hisg 
 luminous interpretations of the changed/ >s 
 

 iditions which he saw about him; I 
 ive noted his unconcern toward the 
 lerely material advances of society, his 
 |pP|penetrative insight into its intellectual 
 K and moral developments, A mind so 
 ^capacious and open, a nature so trained 
 .and poised, could not be otherwise 
 than self-contained and calm even in 
 ;:|the presence of changes so vast and 
 manifold as those which have trans 
 formed society since the days of the 
 ^reat Athenian; but even he could not 
 be quite unmoved if brought face to 
 face with a life so unlike that with 
 Ifwhich he had been familiar; there 
 |jmust come, even to one who feels 
 Jthe mastery of the soul over all con- 
 Ifditions, a certain sense of wonder and 
 iwe. 
 
 It was with some such feeling that 
 Rosalind and I found ourselves in the 
 IForest of Arden. The journey was so 
 [soon accomplished that we had no time 
 
 
 16 
 

 , ^ <. 
 
 to accustom ourselves to the changes 
 between the country we had left and 
 that to which we had come* We had 
 always fancied that the road would be 
 long and hard, and that we should 
 arrive worn and spent with the fatigues 
 of travel We were astonished and de 
 lighted when we suddenly discovered 
 that we were within the boundaries of 
 the Forest long before we had begun 
 to think of the end of our journey* We 
 had said nothing to each other by the 
 way; our thoughts were so busy that 
 we had no time for speech. There were 
 no other travellers; everybody seemed 
 to be going in the opposite direction; 
 and we were left to undisturbed medi 
 tation. The route to the Forest is one 
 of those open secrets which whosoever 
 would know must learn for himself; it 
 is impossible to direct those who do not 
 discover for themselves how to make 
 the journey. The Forest is probably 
 
v,v: 
 
 
 the most accessible place on the face 
 of the earth, but it is so rarely visited 
 that one may go half a lifetime without 
 meeting a person who has been there. 
 I have never been able to explain the 
 fact that those who have spent some 
 time in the Forest, as well as those 
 who are later to see it, seem to recog 
 nise each other by instinct. Rosalind 
 and I happen to have a large circle of 
 acquaintances, and it has been our good 
 fortune to meet and recognise many who 
 were familiar with the Forest, and who 
 were able to tell us much about its 
 localities and charms. It is not gener 
 ally known, and it is probably wise 
 not to emphasise the fact, that the for 
 tunate few who have access to the 
 Forest form a kind of secret fraternity; 
 a brotherhood of the soul which is secret 
 8 because those alone who are qualified for 
 membership by nature can understand 
 either its language or its aims. It is a 
 

 *--,,. ; . <- ;..--.;, V -.--.-" 
 
 very strange thing that the dwellers in 
 the Forest never make the least attempt 
 at concealment, but that, no matter how 
 frank and explicit their statements may 
 be, nobody outside the brotherhood ever 
 understands where the Forest lies, or 
 what one finds when he gets there. 
 One may write what he chooses about 
 life in the Forest, and only those whom 
 Nature has selected and trained will 
 understand what he discloses; to all 
 others it will be an idle tale or a fairy 
 story for the entertainment of peo 
 ple who have no serious business in 
 hand. 
 
 I remember well the first time I ever 
 understood that there is a Forest of 
 Arden, and that they who choose may 
 wander through its arched aisles of 
 shade and live at their will in its deep 
 and beautiful solitude; a solitude in 
 which nature sits like a friend from 
 whose face the veil has been with- 
 
 9 
 
drawn, and whose strange and foreign 
 utterance has been exchanged for the 
 most familiar speech. Since that memo- 
 rable afternoon under the apple trees I 
 have never been far from the Forest, 
 although at times I have lost sight of 
 the line which its foliage makes against 
 the horizon. I have always intended 
 to cross that line some day, and to ex- 
 plore the Forest ; perhaps even to make 
 a home for myself there. But one s 
 dreams must often wait for their reali- 
 sation, and so it has come to pass that 
 I have gone all these years without 
 personal familiarity with these beautiful 
 scenes. I have since learned that one 
 never comes to the Forest until he is 
 thoroughly prepared in heart and mind, 
 and I understand now that I could not 
 have come earlier even if I had made 
 the attempt. As it happened, I con 
 cerned myself with other things, and 
 never approached very near the Forest, 
 
 
 
 
. Uran 
 
 although never very far from it. I was 
 never quite happy unless I caught fre 
 quent glimpses of its distant boughs, 
 and I searched more and more eagerly 
 for those who had left some record of 
 their journeys to the Forest, and of 
 their life within its magical boundaries* 
 I discovered, to my great joy, that the 
 libraries were full of books which had 
 much to say about the delights of 
 Arden: its enchanting scenery; the 
 music of its brooks; the sweet and 
 refreshing repose of its recesses; the 
 noble company that frequent it* I soon 
 found that all the greater poets have 
 been there, and that their lines had 
 caught the magical radiance of the sky; 
 and many of the prose writers showed 
 the same familiarity with a country in 
 which they evidently found whatever 
 was sweetest and best in life* I came 
 to know at last those whose knowledge 
 of Arden was most complete, and I put 
 
 
in a place by themselves; a cor- 
 in the study to which Rosalind 
 went for the books we read to 
 gether. I would gladly give a list of 
 these works but for the fact I have 
 already hinted that those who would 
 understand their references to Arden 
 will come to know them without aid 
 from me, .and that those who would 
 not understand could find nothing in 
 them even if I should give page and 
 paragraph. It was a great surprise to 
 me, when I first began to speak of the 
 Forest, to find that most people scouted 
 the very idea of such a country; many 
 did not even understand what I meant. 
 Many a time, at sunset, when the light | 
 has lain soft and tender on the distant 
 Forest, I have pointed it out, only to be 
 told that what I thought was the Forest 
 was a splendid pile of clouds, a shining 
 mass of mist. I came to understand at 
 last that Arden exists only for a few, 
 
 

 &S>5fMr 
 
 5:^rr 
 
 and I ceased to talk about it save to |p 
 ? those who shared my faith. Gradually | 
 
 I came to number among my friends Pl^/x^j 
 
 many who were in the habit of making p tfffj 
 ; ? frequent journeys to the Forest, and | 
 5; not a few who had spent the greater | 
 
 part of their lives there. I remember %^ 
 Sthe first time I saw Rosalind I saw | 
 I the light of the Arden sky in her |^| 
 | eyes, the buoyancy of the Arden air I 
 ^ in her step, the purity and freedom of ; 
 3|the Arden life in her nature. We built ^ 
 | our home within sight of the Forest, 
 ||and there was never a day that we y ^^ 
 pf did not talk about and plan our long- 
 jS| delayed journey thither. |K5 
 
 J " After all," said Rosalind, on that p 
 J first glorious morning in Arden, "as I ^ 
 | look back I see that we were always I 
 
 on the way here." 
 
m 
 
 Well, this is the Forest of Arden 
 
a certain !:>> 
 
 8ii 
 
 The first sensation that comes to 
 one who finds himself at last within 
 the boundaries of the Forest of Arden 
 is a delicious sense of freedom. I am 
 not sure that there is not 
 sympathy with outlawry in that first 
 exhilarating consciousness of having 
 gotten out of the conventional world, 
 the world whose chief purpose is 
 that all men shall wear the same coat, 
 eat the same dinner, repeat the same 
 polite commonplaces, and be forgotten 
 at last under the same epitaph. Forests H 
 have beeri the natural refuge of outlaws f| 
 from the earliest time, and among thef 
 most respectable persons there has al 
 ways been an ill-concealed liking for 
 Robin Hood and the whole fraternity 
 of the men of the bow. Truth is above 
 all things characteristic of the dwellers I 
 in Arden, and it must be frankly con 
 fessed at the beginning, therefore, that 
 the Forest is given over entirely to 
 
 
outlaws; those who have committed 
 some grave offence against the world 
 of conventions, or who have voluntarily 
 gone into exile out of sheer liking for a 
 freer life. These persons are not vulgar 
 law-breakers ; they have neither blood 
 on their hands nor ill-gotten gains in 
 their pockets ; they are, on the contrary, 
 people of uncommonly honest bearing 
 and frank speech. Their offences evi 
 dently impose small burden on their 
 conscience, and they have the air of 
 those who have never known what it 
 is to have the Furies on one s track. 
 Rosalind was struck with the charming 
 naturalness and gaiety of every one 
 we met in our first ramble on that 
 delicious and never-to-be-forgotten morn 
 ing when we arrived in Arden. There 
 was neither assumption nor diffidence: 
 
 [there was rather an entire absence erf 
 
 any kind of self-consciousness. Rosa- 
 ] lind had fancied that we might be quite 
 
 - 
 
 
; ; 
 
 I 
 
 ? alone for a time, and we had expected 
 " to have a few days to ourselves. We 
 had even planned in our romantic mo 
 ments and there is always a good 
 deal of romance among the dwellers in 
 Arden a continuation of our wedding 
 journey during the first week. 
 
 "It will be so much more delightful 
 than before/ suggested Rosalind, " be 
 cause nobody will stare at us, and we 
 shall have the whole world to our 
 selves." In that last phrase I recog 
 nised the ideal wedding journey, and 
 was not at all dismayed at the prospect 
 of having no society but Rosalind s for 
 a time. But all such anticipations were 
 dispelled in an hour. It was not that 
 we met many people, it is one cf the 
 delights of the Forest that one finds 
 society enough to take away the sense 
 of isolation, but not enough to destroy 
 the sweetness of solitude ; it was rather 
 that the few we met made us feel at 
 
 
 , f 
 
 - 
 I 
 
 IV V: 
 
 - 
 
 
once that we had equal claim with 
 themselves on the hospitality of the | 
 place. The Forest was not only free 
 to every comer, but it evidently gave 
 peculiar pleasure to those who were 
 living in it to convey a sense of owner- 
 ship to those who were arriving for 
 the first time, Rosalind declared that 
 she felt as much at home as if she f jj 
 had been born there; and she added * 
 that she was glad she had brought | 
 only the dress she wore. I was a I 
 little puzzled by the last remark; it I 
 seemed not entirely logical* But I 
 saw presently that she was expressing | 
 the fellowship of the place, which for- if 
 bade that one should possess anything 
 that was not in use, and that, there 
 fore, was not adding constantly to the 
 common stock of pleasure. Concerning 
 the feeling of having been born in 
 Arden, I became convinced later that 
 there was good reason for believing 
 
 T 
 
 
 

 that everybody who loved the place 
 had been born there, and that this fact 
 explained the home feeling which came 
 to one the instant he set foot within 
 the Forest* It is, in fact, the only place 
 I have known which seemed to belong 
 to me and to everybody else at the 
 same time; in which I felt no alien 
 influence* In our own home I had 
 something of the same feeling, but 
 when I looked from a window or set 
 foot from a door I was instantly op 
 pressed with a sense of foreign owner 
 ship* In the great world how little 
 could I call my own! Only a few 
 feet of soil out of the measureless land 
 scape; only a few trees and flowers 
 out of all that boundless foliage! I 
 seemed driven out of the heritage to 
 which I was born; cheated out of my 
 birthright in the beauty of the field and 
 the mystery of the Forest ; put off with 
 the beggarly portion of a younger son 
 
 3 1 
 
 
when I ought to have fallen heir to 
 the kingdom. My chief joy was that 
 from the little space I called my own 
 I could see the whole heavens ; no 
 man could rob me of that splendid 
 vision* 
 
 In Arden, however, the question of 
 ownership never comes into one s 
 thoughts; that the Forest belongs to 
 you gives you a deep joy, but there 
 is a deeper joy in the consciousness 
 that it belongs to everybody else* 
 
 The sense of freedom, which comes 
 as strongly to one in Arden as the 
 smell of the sea to one who has made 
 a long journey from the inland, hints, 
 I suppose, at the offence which makes 
 the dwellers within its boundaries out 
 laws* For one reason or another, they 
 have all revolted against the rule of 
 the world, and the world has cast 
 them out* They have offended smug 
 respectability, with its passionless de- 
 
 mm 
 
 I IHllllli.... 
 
Wz, 
 
 ,r ** >+ v^iJ tfc-. -< 
 
 votion to deportment ; they have out- : 
 raged conventional usage, that carefully 
 devised system by which small natures \ 
 to bring great ones down to 
 their own dimensions ; they have scan- I 
 dalised the orthodoxy which, like Mem- ; 
 non, has lost the music of its morning, 
 and marvels that the world no longer 
 listens ; they have derided venerable 
 prejudices, those ugly relics by which 
 some men keep in remembrance their 
 barbarous ancestry; they have refused 
 to follow flags whose battles were won 
 or lost ages ago; they have scorned to 
 compromise with untruth, to go with 
 the crowd, to acquiesce in evil " for the 
 good of the cause," to speak when they 
 ought to keep silent, and to keep silent 
 when they ought to speak* Truly the 
 lists of sins charged to the account of 
 Arden is a long one, and were it not 
 that the memory of the world, concerned 
 chiefly with the things that make for 
 

 its comfort, is a short one, it would go 
 ill with the lovers of the Forest* More 
 than once it has happened that some 
 offender has suffered so long a banish 
 ment that he has taken permanent 
 refuge in Arden, and proved his citi 
 zenship there by some act worthy of 
 its glorious privileges. In the Forest | 
 one comes constantly upon traces of I 
 those who, like Dante and Milton, have 
 found there a refuge from the Philis- | 
 tinism of a world that often hates its -| 
 children in exact proportion to their I 
 ability to give it light* For the most 
 part, however, the outlaws who frequent & 
 the Forest suffer no longer banishment f /, 
 than that which they impose on them- J* 
 selves. They come and go at their I 
 own sweet will ; and their coming, I k 
 suspect, is generally a matter of their |~ 
 own choosing. The world still loves ^ 
 darkness more than light ; but it rarely . 
 nowadays falls upon the lantern-bearer | 
 
and beats the life out of him, as in 
 . " the good old times." The world has 
 > grown more decent and polite, Chough jj|8| 
 
 still at heart no doubt the bad old world |^ 
 
 which stoned the prophets. It sneers &; 
 .- where it once stoned ; it rejects and 
 . scorns where it once beat and burned* - 
 ;: And so Arden has become a refuge, ;: 
 | not so much from persecution and 
 
 hatred as from ignorance, indifference, If 
 ; and the small wounds of small minds | 
 | bent upon stinging that which they | 
 
 cannot destroy. 
 
IV 
 
 Fleet the time carelessly, as they did in the 
 golden world 
 
Rosalind and I have always been 
 planning to do a great many pleasant 
 things when we had more time. Dur 
 ing the busy days when we barely 
 found opportunity to speak to each 
 other we were always thinking of the 
 better days when we should be able to 
 sit hours together with no knock at the 
 door and no imperative summons from 
 the kitchen. Some man of sufficient 
 eminence to give his words currency 
 ought to define life as a series of inter 
 ruptions. [There are a good many 
 valuable and inspiring things which 
 can only be done when one is in the 
 mood, and to secure a mood is not 
 always an easy matter;] there are 
 moods which are as coy as the most 
 high-spirited woman, and must be 
 wooed with as much patience and 
 tact: and when the illusive prize is 
 gained, one holds it by the frailest ten 
 ure. An interruption diverts the cur- 
 
 * -" 
 
.^M 
 
 r: ^tM:m-:^K^^^^w^^^ 
 
 rent, cuts the golden thread, breaks 
 the exquisite harmony. I have often 
 thought that Dante was far less unfor 
 tunate than the world has judged him 
 to be. If he had been courted and 
 crowned instead of rejected and exiled, 
 it might have been that his genius 
 would have missed the conditions which 
 gave it immortal utterance. Left to him 
 self, he had only his own nature to 
 reckon with; the world passed him by, 
 and left him to the companionship of his 
 sublime and awful dreams. To be left 
 alone with one s self is often the highest 
 good fortune. (Moreover, I detest being 
 hurriedj it seems to me the most offen 
 sive way in which we are reminded 
 of our mortality ; there is time enough 
 if we know how to use it. People 
 who, like Goethe, never rest and never 
 haste, complete their work and escape 
 the friction of it. 
 
 One of the most delightful things 
 
 ^ii(ilitfffl)gi3l^i ! P^,(S 
 
about life in Arden is the absence of 
 any sense of haste; life is a matter of 
 being rather than of doing, and o n ^ 
 shares the tranquillity of the great trees 
 that silently expand year by yearl The 
 fever and restlessness are gone, the 
 long strain of nerve and will relaxed ; 
 a delicious feeling of having strength 
 and time enough to live one s life and 
 do one s work fills one with a deep and 
 enduring sense of repose* 
 
 Rosalind, who had been busy about 
 so many things that I sometimes almost 
 lost sight of her for days together, found 
 time to take long walks with me, to 
 watch the birds and the clouds, and 
 talk by the hour about all manner of 
 pleasant trifles. I came to feel, after a 
 time, that just what I anticipated would 
 happen in Arden had happened. I was 
 fast becoming acquainted with her. We 
 spent days together in the most delight- 
 ful half-vocal and half-silent fellowship: 
 
 KSKn 
 
 
leaving everything to the mood of the 
 hour and the place* Our walks took us 
 sometimes into lovely recesses, where 
 mutual confidences seemed as natural 
 as the air; sometimes into solitudes 
 where talk seemed an impertinence, 
 and we were silent under the spell of 
 rustling leaves and thrilling melodies 
 coming from we knew not what hid 
 den minstrelsy. But whether silent or 
 speaking, we were fast coming to know 
 each other. I saw many traits in her, 
 many characteristic habits and move 
 ments which I had never noted before ; 
 and I was conscious that she was mak 
 ing similar discoveries in me. These 
 mutual revelations absorbed us dur 
 ing our first days in the Forest; 
 and f they confirmed the impression 
 which I brought with me that half 
 the charm of people is lost under the 
 pressure of work and the irritation 
 of haste| We rarely know our best 
 
friends on their best side; our vision 
 of their noblest selves is constantly 
 obscured by the mists of preoccupation 
 and weariness* 
 
 In Arden, life is pitched on the natural 
 key; nobody is ever hurried; nobody 
 is ever interrupted; nobody carries his 
 work like a pack on his back instead 
 of leaving it behind him as the sun 
 leaves the earth when the day is over 
 and the calm stars shine in the un 
 broken silence of the sky. Rosalind 
 and I were entirely conscious of the 
 transformation going on within us, and 
 were not slow to submit ourselves to 
 its beneficent influence. We felt that 
 Arden would not put all its resources 
 into our hand until we had shaken 
 off the dust and parted from the fret 
 of the world we had left behind. 
 
 In those first inspiring days we went 
 oftenest to the heart of the pines, where 
 the moss grew so deep that our move- 
 
 \T 
 
BvK^Tyi 
 
 ^^BMll 8@fc* 
 
 
 ments were noiseless ; where 
 in subdued and gentle tones among the 
 closely clustered trees; and where no 
 sound ever reached us save the organ ? 
 music of the great boughs when the I 
 wind evoked their sublime harmonies. f 
 Many a time, as we have sat silent 
 while the tones of that majestic sym 
 phony rose and fell about us, we seemed 
 to become a part of the scene itself; we 
 felt the unfathomed depth of a music 
 produced by no conscious thought, 
 wrought out by no conscious toil, but 
 akin, in its spontaneity and natural 
 ness, with the fragrance of the flower. 
 And with these thrilling notes there 
 came to us the thought of the calm, 
 reposeful, irresistible growth of Nature; 
 never hasting, never at rest; the silent 
 spreading of the tree, the steady burn 
 ing of the star, the noiseless flow of the 
 river! Was not this sublime uncon 
 sciousness of time, this glorious appro- 
 
 44 
 
 " : : 
 

 priation of eternity, something we had I 
 missed all our lives, and, in missing ? 
 it, had lost our birthright of quiet hours, I 
 calm thought, sweet fellowship, ripen 
 ing character ? The fever and tumult I 
 of the world we had left were discords 
 in a strain that had never yielded its | 
 music before. 
 
 For nature beats in perfect tune, 
 And rounds with rhyme her every rune, 
 Whether she work in land or sea, 
 Or hide underground her alchemy. 
 Thou canst not wave thy staff in air, 
 
 Or dip thy paddle in the lake, 
 But it carves the bow of beauty there, 
 
 And the ripples in rhymes the oars for- : 
 sake. 
 
 After one of these long, delicious 
 days in the heart of the pines, Rosalind 
 slipped her hand in mine as we walked 
 slowly homeward. 
 
 "This is the first day of my life/ 
 she said. 
 
 , 
 
And this our life, exempt from public haunt, 
 Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, 
 Sermons in stones, and good in everything 
 

 .", 
 
 SHK&i 
 
 It was one of those entrancing morn 
 ings when the earth seems to have 
 been made over under cover of night, 
 and one drinks the first draft of a new 
 experience when he sees it by the light 
 of a new day. Such mornings are not 
 uncommon in Arden, where the nightly 
 dews work a perpetual miracle of fresh 
 ness* On this particular morning we 
 had strayed long and far, the silence 
 and solitude of the woods luring us 
 hour after hour with unspoken promises 
 to the imagination* We had come at 
 length to a place so secluded, so re 
 mote from stir and sound, that one 
 might dream there of the sacredness of 
 ancient oracles and the revels of ancient 
 gods. 
 
 Rosalind had gathered wild flowers 
 along the way, and sat at the base of 
 a great tree intently disentangling her 
 treasures. With that figure before me, 
 I thought of nearer and more sacred 
 
 49 
 
things than the old woodland gods that 
 might have strayed that way centuries 
 ago; I had no need to recall the van 
 ished times and faiths to interpret the 
 spirit of an hour so far from the com 
 monplaces of human speech, so free 
 from the passing moods of human life. 
 The sweet unconsciousness of that face, 
 bent over the mass of wild flowers, and 
 akin to them in its unspoiled loveliness, 
 was to that hour and place like the 
 illuminated capital in the old missal; a 
 ray of colour which unlocked the dark 
 mystery of the text. When one can 
 see the loveliness of a wild flower, 
 and feel the absorbing charm of its 
 sentiment, one is not far from the 
 kingdom of Nature. 
 
 As these fancies chased one another 
 across my mind, lying there at full 
 length on the moss, I, too, seemed to 
 lose all consciousness that I had ever 
 touched life at any point than this, or 
 
 

TJNP7 
 
that any other hour had ever pressed 
 its cup of experience to my lips* The 
 great world of which I was once part 
 disappeared out of memory like a mist 
 that recedes into a faint cloud and lies 
 faint and far on the boundaries of the 
 day; my own personal life, to which 
 I had been bound by such a multitude 
 of gossamer threads that when I tried 
 to unloose one I seemed to weave a 
 hundred in its place, seemed to sink 
 below the surface of consciousness. I 
 ceased to think, to feel ; I was conscious 
 only of the vast and glorious world of 
 tree and sky which surrounded me. I 
 felt a thrill of wonder that I should be 
 so placed* I had often lain thus under 
 other trees, but never in such a mood 
 as this. It was as if I had detached 
 myself from the hitherto unbroken cur 
 rent of my personal life, and by some 
 miracle of that marvellous place become 
 part of the inarticulate life of Nature. 
 
 
Clouds and trees, dim vistas of shadow 
 and flower-starred space of sunlight, 
 were no longer alien to me; I was 
 akin with the vast and silent movement 
 of things which encompassed me. No 
 new sound came to me, no new sight 
 broke on my vision; but I heard with 
 ears, and I saw with eyes, to which all 
 other sounds and sights had ceased to 
 be. I cannot translate into words the 
 mystery and the thrill of that hour 
 when, for the first time, I gave myself 
 wholly into the keeping of Nature, and 
 she received me as her child. What I 
 felt, what I saw and heard, belong only 
 to that place; outside the Forest of 
 Arden they are incomprehensible. It is 
 enough to say that I had parted with 
 all my limitations, and freed myself from 
 all my bonds of habit and ignorance $ 
 and prejudice ; I was no longer worn $ 
 and spent with work and emotion and j. 
 impression ; I was no longer prisoned | 
 
 
 
 

 within the iron bars of my own person- v 
 ality. I was as free as the bird ; I was ! 
 as little bound to the past as the cloud 
 that an hour ago was breathed out of 
 the heart of the sea; I was as joyous, ; 
 as unconscioifs, as wholly given to the 
 rapture of the hour as if I had come 
 into a world where freedom and joy 
 were an inalienable and universal pos 
 session. I did not speculate about the 
 great fleecy clouds that moved like 
 galleons in the ethereal sea above me; 
 I simply felt their celestial beauty, the 
 radiancy of their unchecked movement, 
 the freedom and splendour of the inex- 
 haustible play of life of which they were 
 part. I asked no questions of myself 
 about the great trees that wove the 
 garments of the magical forest about 
 me ; I felt the stir of their ancient life, 
 rooted in the centuries that had left no 
 record in that place save the added girth 
 and the discarded leaf ; I had no thought 
 
 53 
 
about the bird whose note thrilled the 
 forest save the rapture of pouring out 
 without measure or thought the joy 
 that was in me; I felt the vast irresis 
 tible movement of life rolling, wave 
 after wave, out of the unseen seas be 
 yond, obliterating the faint divisions by 
 which, in this working world, we count 
 the days of our toil, and making all the 
 ages one unbroken growth; I felt the 
 measureless calm, the sublime repose, of 
 that uninterrupted expansion of form 
 and beauty, from flower to star and 
 from bird to cloud; I felt the mighty 
 impulse of that force which lights the 
 sun in its track and sets the stars 
 to mark the boundaries of its way* 
 Unbroken repose, unlimited growth, 
 inexhaustible life, measureless force, un 
 searchable beauty who shall feel these 
 things and not know that there are no 
 words for them! And yet in Arden 
 they are part of every man s life! 
 
 54 
 
 H II 
 
And all the time Rosalind sat weav 
 ing her wild flowers into a loose wreath, 8, 
 
 44 1 must not take them from this J 
 place," she said, as she bound them ! 
 about the venerable tree, as one would 
 bind the fancy of the hour to some 
 eternal truth. 
 
 "Yesterday," she added, as she sat 
 down again and shook the stray leaves 
 and petals from her lap "yesterday 
 was the first day of my life : to-day is 
 the second*" 
 
 It is one of the delights of Arden 
 that one does not need to put his whole 
 thought into words there ; half the need 
 of language vanishes when we say only 
 what we mean, and what we say is 
 heard with sympathy and intelligence. 
 Rosalind and I were thinking the same 
 thought. Yesterday we had discovered 
 that an open mind, freedom from work 
 and care and turmoil, make it possible 
 for people to be their true selves and tc 
 

 know each other. To-day we had 
 discovered that nature reveals herself 
 only to the open mind and heart; to 
 all others she is deaf and dumb. The 
 worldling who seeks her never sees so i 
 much as the hem of her garment; the 
 egotist, the self-engrossed man, searches t 
 in vain for her counsel and consolation ; f 
 the over-anxious, fretful soul finds her 
 i indifferent and incommunicable* We 
 !; may seek her far and wide, with minds % 
 / intent upon other things, and she will -| 
 forever elude us ; but on the morning | 
 we open our windows with a free mind, 
 she is there to break for us the seal of 
 her treasures, and to pour out the per- 
 p fume of her flowers. She is cold, re- ; 
 / mote, inaccessible only so long as we 
 <[ close the doors of our hearts and minds 
 to her. With the drudges and slaves 
 of mere getting and saving she has| 
 nothing in common; but with those 
 
 who hold their souls above the price 
 
 56 
 
 ..-: :; -, ..... . . .... . 
 
 mm* 
 
 
 
of the world and the bribe of success 
 she loves to share her repose, her f: 
 strength, and her beauty. In Arden 
 Rosalind and I cared as little for the ^ 
 world we had left as children intent ^ 
 upon daisies care for the dust of the |- 
 road out of which they have come into 5 
 the wide meadows. 
 
 57 
 
 
VI 
 
 Here feel we but the penalty of Adam, 
 The season s difference, as the icy fang 
 And churlish chiding of the winter wind, 
 Which, when it bites and blows upon my body, 
 Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say, 
 This is no flattery: these are counsellors 
 That feelingly persuade me what I am 
 
If the ideal conditions of life, of which 
 most of us dream, could be realised, the 
 result would be a padded and luxurious 
 existence, well-housed, well-fed, well- 
 dressed, with all the winds of heaven 
 tempered to indolence and cowardice. 
 We are saved from absolute shame by 
 the consciousness that if such a life 
 were possible we should speedily revolt 
 against the comforts that flattered the 
 body while they ignored the soul* In 
 Arden there is no such compromise 
 with our immoral desires to get results 
 without work, to buy without paying 
 for what we receive. Nature keeps 
 no running accounts and suffers no 
 man to get in her debt ; she deals with 
 us on the principles of immutable right 
 eousness; she treats us as her equals, 
 and demands from us an equivalent for 
 every gift or grace of sight or sound 
 she bestows. She rejects contemptu 
 ously the advances of the weaklings 
 
 

 p^ff^agp 
 1 !.*; 
 
 u 
 IU^S**^-,VT 
 
 h^^ ; jiorai^ i \iru^^ 
 
 who aspire to become her beneficiaries 
 without having made good their claim 
 by some service or self-denial; she re 
 wards those only who, like herself, find 
 music in the tempest as well as in the 
 summer wind; joy in arduous service 
 as well as in careless ease. A world 
 in which there were no labours to be 
 f$ accomplished, no burdens to be borne, 
 no storms to be endured, would be a 
 world without true joy, honest pleasure, 
 or noble aspiration. It would be a 
 fool s paradise. 
 
 The Forest of Arden is not without 
 its changes of weather and season. 
 Rosalind and I had fancied that it was 
 always summer there, and that sunlight 
 reigned from year s end to year s end; 
 if we had been told that storms some 
 times overshadowed it, and that the icy 
 fang of winter is felt there, we should 
 have doubted the report. We had a 
 good deal to learn when we first went 
 
 sww 
 
 62 
 
I to Arden ; in fact, we still have a grea 
 deal to learn about this wonderful coun 
 try, in which so many of the ideals anc 
 standards with which we were once 
 :! familiar are reversed. It is one of the 
 I blessed results of living in the Forest 
 I that one is more and more conscious 
 that he does not know, and more and 
 more eager to learn. There are no 
 shams of any sort in Arden, and all 
 pride in concealing one s ignorance dis 
 appears ; one s chief concern is to be 
 I known precisely as he is. We were a 
 I little sensitive at first, a little disposed 
 jj| to be cautious about asking questions 
 I that might reveal our ignorance ; but \ 
 we speedily lost the false shame we 
 had brought with us from a world 
 where men study to conceal, as a means 
 of protecting, the things that are most 
 precious to them. When we learned 
 that in the Forest nobody vulgarises 
 
 one s affairs by making them matter 
 
 63 
 
 
4 
 
 of common talk, that all the meannesses 
 of slander and gossip and misinterpreta 
 tion are unknown, and that charity, 
 courtesy, and honour are the unfailing 
 law of intercourse, we threw down our 
 reserves and experienced the refreshing 
 freedom and sympathy of full knowledge 
 between man and man* 
 
 After a long succession of golden days 
 we awoke one morning to the familiar 
 sound of rain on the roof; there was 
 no mistake about it; it was raining in 
 Arden! Rosalind was so incredulous 
 that I could see she doubted if she 
 were awake; and when she had satis 
 fied herself of that fact she began to 
 ask herself whether we had been really 
 in the Forest at all; whether we had 
 not been dreaming in a kind of double 
 consciousness, and had now come to 
 the awakening which should rob us of 
 this golden memory* At last we recog 
 nised the fact that we were still 
 
 in 
 
Arden, and that it was raining. It 
 was a melancholy awakening, and we 
 were silent and depressed at breakfast; 
 for the first time no birds sang, and 
 no sunlight flickered through the leaves 
 and brought the day smiling to our 
 very door. The rain fell steadily, and 
 when the wind swept through the trees 
 a sound like a sob went up from the 
 Forest. After breakfast, for lack of 
 active occupation, we lighted a few 
 sticks in the rough fireplace, and found 
 ourselves gradually drawn into the cir 
 cle of cheer in the little room. The 
 great world of Nature was for a mo 
 ment out of doors, and there seemed 
 no incongruity in talking about our 
 own experiences; we recalled the days 
 in the world we had left behind; we 
 remembered the faces of our neigh 
 bours; we reminded each other of the 
 incidents of our journey; we retold, in 
 antiphonal fashion, the story of our 
 
 mm. 
 
:% 
 
 stay in the Forest; we grew eloquent 
 as we described, one after another, the 1 
 noble persons we had met there; our 
 hearts kindled as we became conscious \- 
 of the wonderful enrichment and en- fc 
 largement of life that had come to us ; | 
 | and as the varied splendours of the | 
 days and scenes of Arden returned in | 
 our memories, the spell of the Forest | 
 came upon us, and the mysterious 8 
 cadence of the rain, falling from leaf | 
 to leaf, added another and deeper tone jt 
 to the harmony of our Forest life. | 
 The gloom had gone; we had all the I 
 delight of a new experience in our 
 hearts. 
 
 "I am glad it rains," Rosalind said, 
 as she gave the fire one of her vigor 
 ous stirrings ; " I am glad it rains : I 
 don t think we should have realised I 
 how lovely it is here if we were not 
 shut in from time to time. One is 
 played upon by so many impressions 
 
 66 
 
 
 
or THK 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
: -"I tVf - " ^^ 
 
 " 
 
 that one must escape from them to 
 understand how beautiful they are. 
 And then I m not sure that even 
 dark days and rain have not something 
 which sunshine and clear skies could 
 not give us." As usual, Rosalind had;; 
 spoken my thought before I had made 
 it quite clear to myself; I began to; 
 feel the peculiar delight of our comfort 
 in the heart of that great forest when; 
 the storm was abroad. The monotone * 
 of the rain became rhythmic with some 
 ancient, primeval melody, which the 
 woods sang before their solitude had 
 been invaded by the eager feet of men- ^ 
 always searching for something which!- 
 they do not possess. I felt the spell 
 of that mighty life which includes the 
 tempest and the tumult of winds and 
 waves among the myriad voices with 
 which it speaks its marvellous secret. 
 Half the meaning would go out of 
 Nature if no storms ever dimmed the 
 
 6; 
 
 
 
 ,v 
 
 
light of stars or vexed the calm of 
 summer seas. It is the infinite variety 
 of Nature which fits response to every 
 I need and mood, renews for ever the 
 freshness of contact with her, and 
 holds us by a power of which we 
 - never weary because we never exhaust 
 its resources. 
 
 44 After all, Rosalind/ I said, 44 it was 
 not the storms and the cold which made 
 I our old life hard, and gave Nature an 
 I unfriendly aspect ; it was the things 
 f in our human experience which gave 
 I tempest and winter a meaning not their 
 " own. In a world in which all hearts beat 
 true, and all hands were helpful, there 
 would be no real hardship in Nature. 
 It is the loss, sorrow, weariness, and 
 disappointment of life which give dark 
 days their gloom, and cold its icy edge, 
 and work its bitterness. The real sor 
 rows of life are not of Nature s mak 
 ing; if faithlessness and treachery and 
 
 68 
 

 
 II I 
 
 every sort of baseness were taken out 
 of human lives, we should find only a 
 healthy and vigorous joy in such hard 
 ship as Nature imposes upon us. Upon 
 men of sound, sweet life, she lays only 
 ( such burdens as strength delights to 
 carry, because in so doing it increases 
 itself/ 
 
 "That is true," said Rosalind. "The 
 day is dark only when the mind is 
 dark; all weathers are pleasant when 
 the heart is at rest. There are rainy 
 days in Arden, but no gloomy ones; 
 there are probably cold days, but none 
 that chill the soul." 
 
 I do not know whether it was Rosa 
 lind s smile or the sudden breaking of 
 the sun through the clouds that made 
 the room brilliant; probably it was 
 both. Rosalind opened the lattice, and 
 I saw that the rain had ceased. The 
 drops still hung on every leaf, but the 
 clouds were breaking into great shining 
 
 

 
 
 masses, and the blue of the sky was 
 of unsearchable purity and depth* The 
 sun poured a flood of light into .the 
 heart of the Forest, and suddenly every 
 tiny drop, that a moment ago might 
 have seemed a symbol of sorrow, held 
 the radiant sun on its little disk, and 
 every sphere shone as if a universe 
 of fairy creation had been suddenly 
 breathed into being* And the splendour 
 touched Rosalind also* 
 
vn 
 
 . . . Pray you, if you know, 
 Where in the purlieus of this forest stands 
 A sheep-cote fenced about with olive trees ? 
 
 
 The rank of osiers by the murmuring stream 
 Left on your right hand, brings you to the place. 
 But at this hour the house doth keep itself 
 
Years ago, when we were planning 
 to build a certain modest little house,; 
 Rosalind and I found endless delight 
 in the pleasures of anticipation. By 
 day and by night our talk came backi 
 to the home we were to make for our-] 
 selves. We discussed plan after planl 
 and found none quite to our mind;^ 
 we examined critically the houses we; 
 visited; we pored over books; we laid; 
 the experience of our friends under con-; 
 tribution; and when at last we had 
 agreed upon certain essentials, we called; 
 an architect to our aid, and fondly im 
 agined that now the prelude of discus-; 
 sion and delay was over, we should" 
 find unalloyed delight in seeing our 
 imaginary home swiftly take form and- 
 become a thing of reality. Alas for our 
 hopes ! Expense followed fast upon ex 
 pense and delay upon delay. There 
 were endless troubles with masons and 
 carpenters and plumbers; and when 
 
 73 
 
 . -: . 
 - 
 

 our dream was at last realised, the 
 charm of it had somehow vanished; 
 so much anxiety, care, and vexation 
 had gone into the process of building 
 that the completed structure seemed to 
 be a monument of our toil rather than 
 a refuge from the world* 
 
 After this sad experience, Rosalind 
 and I contented ourselves with build 
 ing castles in Spain; and so great has 
 been our devotion to this occupation 
 that we are already joint owners of 
 immense possessions in that remote and 
 beautiful country* It is a singular cir 
 cumstance that the dwellers in Arden, 
 almost without exception, are holders 
 of estates in Spain* I have never seen 
 any of these splendid properties; in 
 fact, Rosalind and I have never seen 
 our own castles; but I have heard 
 very full and graphic descriptions of 
 those distant seats* In imagination I 
 have often seen the great piles crown- 
 

 ing the crests of wooded hills, whence 
 noble parks and vast landscapes lay 
 spread out ; I have been thrilled by 
 the notes of the hunting-horn and dis 
 cerned from afar the cavalcade of beau 
 tiful women and gallant men winding 
 its way to the gates of the courtyard; 
 I have seen splendid banners afloat 
 from turret and casement ; I have seen 
 lights flashing at night and heard faint 
 murmurs of music and. laughter. Truly 
 they are fortunate who own castles in 
 Spain ! 
 
 In the Forest of Arden there is no 
 such brave show of battlement and 
 rampart. In all our rambles we never 
 came upon a castle or palace; in fact, 
 so far as I remember, no one ever spoke 
 of such structures* They seem to have 
 no place there. Nor is it hard to un 
 derstand this singular divergence from 
 the ways of a world whose habits and 
 standards are continually reversed in 
 
the Forest, In castle and palace, the 
 wealth and splendour of life every 
 thing that gives it grace and beauty to 
 the eye are treasured within massive 
 walls and protected from the common 
 gaze and touch. Every great park, 
 with its reaches of inviting sward and 
 its groups of noble trees, seems to say 
 to those who pass along the highway: 
 "We are too rare for your using*" 
 Every stately palace, with its wonderful 
 paintings and hangings, its sculpture 
 and furnishings, locks its massive gates 
 against the great world without, as if 
 that which it guards were too precious 
 for common eyes. In Arden no one 
 dreams of fencing off a lovely bit of 
 open meadow or a cluster of great trees ; 
 private ownership is unknown in the 
 Forest* Those who dwell there are 
 tenants in common of a grander estate 
 than was ever conquered by sword, 
 
 purchased by gold, or bequeathed by 
 
 76 
 
 : : .:>." 
 
 
 t 
 
the laws of descent* There are homes 
 for privacy, for the sanctities of love 
 and friendship; but the wealth of life 
 is common to all. Instead of elegant I 
 houses, and a meagre, inferior public^ 
 life, as in the great cities of the world, 
 there are modest homes and a noble 
 common life* If the houses in our cities I 
 were simple and homelike in their ap 
 pointments, and all their treasures of | 
 art and beauty were lodged in noble I 
 structures, open to every citizen, the 
 world would know something of the : 
 habits of those who find in Arden that I 
 satisfying thought of life which is de- ; 
 nied them among men, moderation, I 
 simplicity, frugality for our private and I 
 personal wants ; splendid profusion, noble I 
 lavishness, beautiful luxury for that com 
 mon life which now languishes because I 
 so few recognise its needs. When will 
 i the world learn the real lesson of civili 
 sation, and, for the cheap and ignoble 
 
aspect of modern cities, bring back the 
 stateliness of Rome and the beauty of 
 that wonderful city whose poetry and 
 art were but the voices of her common 
 life? 
 
 The murmuring stream at our door 
 in Arden whispered to us by day and 
 I by night the sweet secret of the happi- 
 | ness in the Forest, where no man strives 
 I to outshine his neighbour or to encumber 
 | the free and joyous play of his life with 
 | those luxuries which are only another 
 | name for care* Our modest little home 
 I sheltered but did not enslave us ; it held 
 a door open for all the sweet ministries 
 of affection, but it was barred against 
 anxiety and care; birds sang at its 
 flower-embowered windows, and the 
 fragrance of the beautiful days lingered 
 there, but no sound from the world of 
 those that strive and struggle ever en 
 tered. We were joyous as children in 
 
 a home which protected our bodies, 
 
 78 
 

 while it set our spirits at liberty ; which 
 gave us the sweetness of rest and seclu 
 sion, while it left us free to use the 
 
 the 
 
 and to drink 
 
 ample leisure 
 deep of its rich and healthful life* Vine- 
 covered, overshadowed by the pine, 
 with the olive standing in friendly neigh 
 bourhood, our home in Arden seemed 
 at the same time part of the Forest and 
 part of ourselves* If it had grown out 
 of the soil, it could not have fitted into 
 the landscape with less suggestion of 
 artifice and construction ; indeed, Nature 
 had furnished all the materials and 
 when the simple structure was complete 
 she claimed it again and made it her 
 own with endless device of moss and 
 vine. Without, it seemed part of the 
 Forest; within, it seemed the visible 
 history of our life there* Friends came 
 and went through the unlatched door; 
 morning broke radiant through the lat 
 ticed window; the seasons enfolded it 
 
 79 
 

 
 with their changing life; our own fel- 
 lowship of mind and heart made it 
 unspeakably sacred. Love and loyalty 
 within; noble friends at the hearthstone; 
 soft or shining heavens above ; mystery 
 of forest and music of stream without : 
 this is home in Arden, 
 
 
vm 
 
 books in the running brooks 
 
In the days before we went to Arden, 
 Rosalind and I had often wondered I 
 what books we should find there, and j;j 
 we had anticipated with the keenest , 
 curiosity that in the mere presence or I 
 absence of certain books we should I 
 discover at last the final principle of I 
 criticism, the absolute standard of liter- 1 
 ary art* Many a time as we sat before I 
 the study fire and finished the reading \ 
 of some volume that had yielded us 
 unmixed delight, we had said to each I 
 other that we should surely find it in 
 Arden, and read it again in an atmos- [ 
 phere in which the most delicate and I 
 beautiful meanings would become as | 
 clear as the exquisite tracery of frost | 
 on the study windows. That we should f 
 find all the classics there we had not the 
 least doubt ; who could imagine a com- | 
 munity of intelligent persons without 
 Homer and Dante and Shakespeare and 
 Wordsworth! How the volumes would I 
 
 
 ." , i; . 
 
be housed we did not try to divine ; but 
 that we should find them there we did 
 not think of doubting* Our chief thought 
 was of the principle of selection, long 
 sought after by lovers of books, but 
 never yet found, which we were certain 
 would be easily discovered when we 
 came to look along the shelves of the 
 libraries in Arden. With what delight 
 we anticipated the long days when we 
 should read together again, and amid 
 such novel surroundings, the books we 
 loved! For, although our home con 
 tained few luxuries, it had fed the mind ; 
 there was not a great soul in literature 
 whose name was not on the shelves of 
 our library, and the companionships of 
 that room made our quiet home more 
 rich in gracious and noble influences 
 than many a palace* 
 
 And yet we had been in the Forest 
 several months before we even thought 
 of books; so absorbed were we in the 
 
 
m 
 
 noble life of the place, in the inspiring 
 society about us. There came a morn 
 ing, however, when, as I looked out 
 into the shadows of the deep woods, I 
 recalled a wonderful line of Dante s that 
 must have come to the poet as he passed 
 through some silent and sombre wood 
 land path* Suddenly I remembered that 
 months had passed since we had opened 
 a book ; we whose most inspiring hours 
 had once been those in which we read 
 together from some familiar page* For 
 an instant I felt something akin to 
 remorse; it seemed as if I had been 
 disloyal to friends who had never 
 failed me in any time of need* But 
 as I meditated on this strange forget- 
 fulness of mine, I saw that in Arden 
 books have no place and serve no 
 purpose. Why should one read a trans 
 lation when the original work lies open 
 and legible before him? Why should 
 
 one watch the reflections in the shad- 
 
 85 
 

 owy surface of the lake when the 
 heavens shine above him ? Why should 
 one linger before the picturesque land 
 scape which art has imperfectly trans 
 ferred to canvas when the scene, with 
 all its elusive play of light and shade, 
 lies outspread before him? I became 
 conscious that | in Arden one lives 
 habitually in the world which books 
 are always striving to portray and in 
 terpret ; that one sees with his own 
 eyes all that the eyes of the keenest 
 observer have ever seen; that one 
 feels in his own soul all the greatest 
 soul has ever felt<J That which in the 
 outer world most men know only by 
 report, in Arden each one knows for 
 himself* The stories of travellers cease 
 to interest us when we are at last within 
 the borders of the strange, far country. 
 
 Books are, at the best, faint and 
 imperfect transcriptions of Nature and 
 life; when one comes to see Nature 
 
 86 
 
 

 as she is with his own eyes, and to 
 enter into the secrets of life, all tran 
 scriptions become inadequate. He who 
 has heard the mysterious and haunting 
 monotone of the sea will never rest 
 content with the noblest harmony in 
 which the composer seeks to blend 
 those deep, elusive tones; he who has 
 sat hour by hour under the spell of 
 the deep woods will feel that spell 
 shorn of its magical power in the 
 noblest verse that ever sought to con 
 tain and express it; he who has once 
 looked with clear, unflinching gaze into 
 the depths of human life will find only 
 vague shadows of the mighty realities 
 in the greatest drama and fiction. The 
 eternal struggle of art is to utter these 
 unutterable things; the immortal thirst 
 of the soul will lead it again and again 
 to these ancient fountains, whence it 
 will bring back its handful of water 
 
 in vessels curiously carven by the hands 
 
 87 
 

 
 
 of imagination* But no cup of man s 
 making will ever hold all that fountain 
 has to give, and to those who are 
 really athirst these golden and beauti 
 fully wrought vessels are insufficient; 
 they must drink of the living stream* 
 In Arden we found these ancient and 
 perennial fountains; and we drank deep 
 and long* There was that in the mys 
 tery of the woods which made all 
 poetry seem pale and unreal to us; 
 there was that in life, as we saw it in 
 the noble souls about us, which made 
 all records and transcriptions in books 
 seem cold and superficial* What need 
 had we of verse when the things which 
 the greatest poets had seen with vision 
 no clearer than ours lay clear and un 
 speakably beautiful before us? What 
 had fiction or history for us, upon whom 
 the thrilling spell of the deepest human 
 living was laid ! Rosalind and I were 
 hourly meeting those whose thoughts 
 
 
 88 
 
had fed the world for generations, and 
 whose names were on all lips, but they 
 never spoke of the books they had writ 
 ten, the pictures they had painted, the 
 music they had composed* And, strange 
 to say, it was not because of these 
 splendid works that we were drawn 
 to them; it was the quality of their 
 natures, the deep, compelling charm of 
 their minds, which filled us with joy in 
 their companionship* In Arden it is a 
 small matter that Shakespeare has 
 written "Hamlet," or Wordsworth the 
 " Ode on Immortality " ; I not that which 
 they have accomplished out that which 
 they are in themselves gives these 
 names a lustre! in Arden such as shines 
 from no crown of fame in the outer 
 world. Rosalind and I had dreamed 
 that we might meet some of those 
 whose words had been the food of 
 immortal hope to us, but we almost 
 
 dreaded that nearer acquaintance which 
 
 s 9 
 
might dispel the illusion of superiority. 
 How delighted were we to discover that 
 /not only are great souls, really under 
 stood, greater than all their works*, but 
 that the works were forgotten and 
 nothing was remembered but the soul! 
 Not as those who are fed by the bounty 
 of the king, but as kings ourselves, were 
 we received into this noble company. 
 Were we not born to the same inheri 
 tance ? Were not Nature and life ours 
 as truly as they were Shakespeare s and 
 Wordsworth s ? As we sat at rest 
 under the great arms of the trees, or 
 roamed at will through the woodland 
 paths, the one thought that was com 
 mon to us all was, not how nobly these 
 scenes had been pictured and spoken, 
 but how far above all language of art 
 they were, and how shallow runs the 
 stream of speech when these mysterious 
 treasures of feeling and insight are 
 launched upon it ! 
 
 CJO 
 
 
 
. * every day 
 Men of great worth resorted 
 to this forest 
 

 The friendship of Nature is matched 
 in Arden with human friendships, as 
 sincere, as void of disguise and flattery, 
 | as stimulating and satisfying* There 
 are times when every sensitive person 
 is wounded by misunderstanding of 
 motives, by lack of sympathy, by indif 
 ference and coldness; such hours came 
 not infrequently to Rosalind and myself 
 in the old days before we set out for the 
 Forest. We found unfailing consolation I 
 and strength in our common faith and 
 purpose, but the frigidity of the atmos- } 
 phere made us conscious at times of the \ 
 effort one puts forth to simply sustain j 
 the life of his ideals, the charm and < 
 sweetness of those secret hopes which I 
 feed the soul. What must it be to live \ 
 among those who are quick to recog 
 nise nobility of motive, to conspire with 
 aspiration, to believe in the best and 
 highest in each other ? It was to taste 
 such a life as this, to feel the consoling 
 
power of mutual faith and the inspi 
 ration of a common devotion to the 
 ideals that were dearest to us, that our 
 thoughts turned so often and with such 
 longing to Arden. In such moments 
 we opened with delight certain books 
 which were full of the joy and beauty of 
 the Forest life; books which brought 
 back the dreams that were fading out 
 and touched us afresh with the un 
 searchable charm and beauty of the 
 Ideal Surely there could no better 
 fortune befall us than to be able to call 
 these great ministering spirits our 
 friends* 
 
 But, strong as was our longing, we 
 were not without misgivings when we 
 first found ourselves in Arden. In this 
 commerce of ideas and hopes, what had 
 we to give in exchange? How could 
 we claim that equality with those we 
 longed to know which is the only basis 
 of friendship? We were unconsciously 
 
 94 
 
carrying into the Forest the limitations 
 of our old life, and among all the glad 
 surprises that awaited us there was 
 none so joyful as the discovery that our 
 misgivings vanished as soon as we 
 began to know our neighbours. Neither 
 iis;;; of us will ever forget the perfect joy of 
 those earliest meetings; a joy so great 
 that we wondered if it could endure* 
 | There is nothing so satisfying as quick 
 comprehension of one s hopes, instant 
 sympathy with them, absolute frankness 
 of speech, and the brilliant and stimu 
 lating play of mind upon mind where 
 there is complete unconsciousness of self 
 and complete absorption in the idea and 
 the hour[ There was something almost 
 intoxicating in those first wonderful 
 talks in Arden; we seemed suddenly 
 not only to be perfectly understood by 
 others, but for the first time to under 
 stand ourselves; the horizons of our 
 mental world seemed to be swiftly 
 
 95 
 
. 
 
 receding, and new continents of truth 
 were lifted up into the clear light of 
 consciousness. All that was best in us 
 was set free ; we were confident where 
 we had been uncertain and doubtful; 
 we were bold where we had been 
 almost cowardly. We spoke our deep 
 est thought frankly ; we drew from their 
 hiding-places our noblest dreams of the 
 life we hoped to live and the things we 
 hoped to achieve ; we concealed nothing, 
 reserved nothing, evaded nothing; we 
 were desirous above all things that 
 others should know us as we knew our 
 selves. It was especially restful and 
 refreshing to speak of our failures and 
 weaknesses, of our struggles and de 
 feats ; for these experiences of ours were 
 instantly matched by kindred experi 
 ences, and in the common sympathy 
 and comprehension a new kind of 
 strength came to us. The humiliation 
 of defeat was shared, we found, by even 
 
the greatest ; and that which made these 
 noble souls what they were was not< 
 freedom from failure and weakness, but 
 steadfast struggle to overcome and 
 achieve. As the life of a new hope 
 filled our hearts, we remembered with a ^ 
 sudden pain the world out of which we \ 
 | had escaped, where every one hides his 
 "1 weakness lest it feed a vulgar curiosity, 
 3 and conceals his defeats lest they be 
 ; used to destroy rather than to build him 
 
 ; ; up. 
 
 With what delight did we find that in 
 Arden the talk touched only great 
 themes, in a spirit of beautiful candour 
 and unaffected earnestness! To have| 
 exchanged the small personal talk from 
 which we had often been unable to 
 escape for this simple, sincere discourse 
 on the things that were of common 
 interest was like exchanging the cloud- 
 enveloped lowland for some sunny 
 mountain slope, where every breath 
 
 97 
 
 1 "-^ ; !->. V 
 
was vital and one mused on half a con 
 tinent spread out at his feet* [There 
 no food for the soul but truth} and we 
 were filled with a mighty hunger when 
 we understood for how long a time we 
 had been but half fed. A new strength 
 came to us, and with it an openness of 
 mind and a responsiveness of heart that 
 made life an inexhaustible joy* We 
 were set free from the weariness of old 
 struggles to make ourselves understood; 
 we were no longer perplexed with 
 doubts about the reality of our ideas; 
 we had but to speak the thought that 
 was in us, and to live fearlessly and 
 joyously in the hour that was before us. 
 Frank speaking, absolute candour, that 
 would once have wounded, now only 
 cheered and stimulated; the spirit of 
 entire helpfulness drives out all morbid 
 self-consciousness* Differences no longer 
 embitter when courtesy and faith are 
 
 universal possessions. 
 
 9 8 
 
 I 
 
 

 There is nothing more sacred than 
 friendship, and it is impossible to profane 
 it by drawing the veil from its minis 
 tries. The charm of a perfectly noble 
 companionship between two souls is as 
 real as the perfume of a flower, and as 
 impossible to convey by word or speech ; 
 Nature has made its sanctity inviolable 
 by making it forever impossible of reve 
 lation and transference* I cannot trans 
 late into any language the delicate ! 
 charm, the inexhaustible variety, the , 
 noble fidelity to truth, the vigour and 
 splendour of thought, the unfailing sym- J 
 pathy, of our Arden friendships; they j 
 are a part of the Forest, and one must 
 seek them there* It would vulgarise 
 these fellowships to catalogue the great 
 names, always familiar to us, and yet 
 which gained another and a better famil 
 iarity when they ceased to recall famous 
 persons and became associated with 
 those who sat at our hearthstone 
 
 or 
 

 ins 
 
 gathered about our simple board* R 
 alind was sooner at home in this noble if: 
 company than I : she had far less to f *, 
 learn; but at last I grew into a famil- | 
 iarity with my neighbours which was all 
 the sweeter to me because it registered 
 a change in myself long hoped for, often 
 despaired of, at last accomplished* To 
 be at one with Nature was a joy which 
 made life seem rich beyond all earlier * 
 thought; but when to this there was % 
 added the fellowship of spirits as true ^ 
 and great as Nature herself, the wine of |1 
 life overflowed the exquisite cup into 
 which an invisible hand poured it* 
 The days passed like a dream as we 
 strayed together through the woodland 
 paths; sometimes in some deep and 
 shadowy glen silence laid her finger on 
 our lips, and in a common mood we 
 found ourselves drawn together without 
 speech* Often at night, when the 
 magic of the moon has woven all 
 
 \ < 
 
 ! : 
 
 
manner of enchantments about us, we 
 have lingered hour after hour under that 
 supreme spell which is felt only when 
 soul speaks with soul. 
 
. . there s no clock in the forest 
 
There were a great many days in 
 Arden when we did absolutely nothing ; 
 
 ;* we awoke without plans ; we fell asleep 
 without memories. This was especially 
 true of the earlier part of our stay in the 
 Forest; the stage of intense enjoyment 
 of new-found freedom and repose. 
 There was a kind of rapture in the 
 possession of our days that was new to 
 us; a sense of ownership of time of 
 which we had never so much as 
 dreamed when we lived by the clock. 
 Those tiny ornamental hands on the 
 delicately painted dial were our task 
 masters, disguised under forms so dainty 
 and fragile that, while we felt their 
 tyranny, we never so much as suspected 
 their share in our servitude. Silent 
 |H themselves, they issued their commands 
 
 || in tones we dared not disregard; fash 
 ioned so cunningly, they ruled us as 
 with iron sceptres; moving within so 
 small a circle, they sent us hither and 
 

 yon on every imaginable service* They 
 severed eternity into minute fragments, 
 and dealt it out to us minute by minute 
 like a cordial given drop by drop to the 
 dying; they marked with relentless 
 exactness the brief periods of our leisure 
 and indicated the hours of our toil* We 
 could not escape from their vigilant and 
 inexorable surveillance; day and night 
 they kept silent record beside us, meas 
 uring out the golden light of summer in 
 their tiny balances, and doling out the 
 pittance of winter sunshine with nig 
 gardly reluctance* They hastened to 
 the end of our joys, and moved with 
 funereal slowness through the appointed 
 times of our sorrow* They ruled every 
 season, pervaded every clay, recorded 
 every hour, and, like misers hoarding a 
 treasure, doled out our birthright of 
 leisure second by second ; so that, being r 
 rich, we were always impoverished; 
 inheritors of vast fortune, we were put 
 
 106 
 
Ik CSjVf 
 
 MK 
 
 lK^^3^H 
 m^ SSBii 
 
 off with 
 
 we 
 
 a meagre income ; born free, 
 were servants of masters who 
 neither ate nor slept, that they might 
 never for a second surrender their 
 overseership. 
 
 There are no clocks in Arden; the 
 sun bestows the day, and no imperti 
 nence of men destroys its charm by 
 calculating its value and marking it with 
 a price* The only computers of time 
 are the great trees whose shadows 
 register the unbroken march of light 
 from east to west* Even the days and 
 nights lost that painful distinctness 
 which they had for us when they gave 
 us a constant sense of loss, an incessant 
 apprehension of change and age* Their 
 shining procession leaves no such 
 records in Arden; they come like the 
 waves whose ceaseless flow sings of the 
 boundless sea whence they come. They 
 bring no consciousness of ebbing years 
 
 and joys and strength; they bring 
 
 107 
 
 
rather a sense of eternal resource and 
 j beneficence* In Arden one never feels 
 !in haste; there is always time enough 
 iand to spare; in fact, the word time is 
 never used in the vernacular of the 
 Forest except when reference is made to 
 the enslaved world without* There 
 were moments at the beginning when 
 we felt a little bewildered by our free 
 dom, and I think Rosalind secretly 
 longed for the familiar tones of the 
 cuckoo clock which had chimed so 
 many years in and out for us in the old 
 days* One must get accustomed even 
 to good fortune, and after one has been 
 confined within the narrow limits of a 
 little plot of earth the possession of a 
 continent confuses and perplexes* But 
 men are born to good fortune if they but 
 [knew it, and we were soon reconciled to 
 fthe possession of inexhaustible wealth* 
 We felt the delight of a sudden exchange 
 of poverty for richness, a swift transition 
 
 108 
 
 
m 
 
 from bondage to freedom. Eternity was 
 ours, and we ceased to divide it into 
 fragments, or to set it off into duties and 
 work* We lived in the consciousness of 
 a vast leisure; a quiet happiness took 
 the place of the old anxiety to always do 
 at the moment the thing that ought to be 
 done; we accepted the days as gifts of 
 joy rather than as bringers of care. 
 
 It was delightful to fall asleep lulled 
 by the rustle of the leaves, and to 
 awake, without memory of care or 
 pressure of work, to a day that had 
 brought nothing more discordant into 
 the Forest than the singing of birds. 
 We rose exhilarated and buoyant, and 
 breakfasted merrily under a great oak; 
 sometimes we lingered far on into the 
 morning, yielding ourselves to the spell 
 of the early day when it no longer 
 proses of work and duty, but sings of 
 freedom and ease and the strength that 
 makes a play of life. Often we strayed 
 
 109 
 
 

 
 without plan or purpose, as the winding 
 paths of the Forest led us; happy and 
 care-free as children suddenly let loose 
 in fairyland* We discovered moss- 
 grown paths which led into the very 
 heart of the Forest, and we pressed on 
 silently from one green recess to another 
 until all memory of the sunnier world 
 faded out of mind* Sometimes we 
 emerged suddenly into a wide, brilliant 
 glade ; sometimes we came into a sane- 
 tuary so overhung with great masses of " If 
 foliage, so secluded and silent, that wej| 
 took the rude pile of moss-grown stones 
 we found there as an altar to solitude, ^j 
 and our stillness became part of theUj 
 universal worship of silence which 
 touched us with a deep and beautiful || 
 solemnity. Wherever we strayed the 
 same tranquil leisure enfolded us; dayi 
 followed day in an order unbroken andi _ 
 peaceful as the unfolding of the flowers^ 
 and the silent march of the stars* Time!" 
 

 
 
 
 no longer ran like the few sands in a 
 delicate hour-glass held by a fragile 
 human hand, but like a majestic river 
 fed by fathomless seas. The sky, bare 
 and free from horizon to horizon, was 
 itself a symbol of eternity, with its 
 infinite depth of colour, its sublime 
 serenity, its deep silence broken only 
 by the flight and songs of birds. These 
 were at home in that ethereal sphere, 
 at rest in that boundless space, and 
 we were not slow to learn the lesson 
 of their freedom and joy. We gave 
 ourselves up to the sweetness of that 
 unmeasured life, without thought offe 
 yesterday or to-morrow ; we drank the 
 cup which to-day held to our lips, and, J 
 knew that so long as we were athirst 
 that draught would not be denied us."; 
 
 
 ., .1 : ._ 
 
* . . every of this happy number 
 
 That have endur d shrewd nights and 
 
 days with us, 
 Shall share the good of our returned 
 
 fortune, 
 According to the measure of their states 
 
 ; 
 
There is this great consolation for 
 those who cannot live continually in 
 the Forest of Arden: that, having 
 once proven one s citizenship there, 
 Hone can return at will* Those who 
 have lived in Arden and have gone 
 back again into the world, are sus 
 tained in their loneliness by the knowl 
 edge of their fellowship with a nobler 
 community* Aliens though they are, 
 they have yet a country to which they 
 iare loyal, not through interest, but 
 through aspiration, imagination, faith, 
 and love* Rosalind and I found the 
 months in Arden all too brief; our life 
 there was one long golden day, whose 
 sunset cast a soft and tender light 
 .on our whole past and made it 
 beautiful for us* It is one of the 
 delights of the Forest that only the 
 noblest aspects of life are visible there; 
 or, rather, that the hard and bare 
 details of livine. seen in the atmos- 
 
phere of Arden, yield some truth of 
 character or experience which, like the 
 rose, makes even the rough calyx which 
 encased it beautiful We had some 
 times spoken together of our return 
 to the world we had left, but we put 
 off as long as possible all definite prep 
 arations* I am not sure that I should 
 | ever have come back if Rosalind had 
 not taken the matter into her own 
 I hands* She remembered that there 
 | was work to be done which ought 
 I not to be longer postponed; that there 
 f were duties to be met which ought not 
 to be longer evaded ; and when did 
 Rosalind fail to be or to do that which 
 the hour and the experience com 
 manded? We treasured the last days 
 as if the minutes were pure gold; 
 we lingered in talk with our friends 
 as if we should never again hear 
 such spoken words; we loitered in the 
 woods as if the spell of that beautiful 
 
 116 
 
or -oat 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
silence would never again touch us* 
 And yet we knew that, once pos 
 sessed, these things were ours for ever ; 
 neither care, nor change, nor time, 
 nor death, could take them from us, 
 for henceforth they were part of our 
 selves* 
 
 We stood again at length on the 
 little porch, covered with dust, and 
 turned the key in the unused lock* 
 I think we were both a little reluctant 
 to enter and begin again the old round 
 of life and work* The house seemed 
 smaller and less homelike, the furniture 
 had lost its freshness, the books on 
 the shelves looked dull and faded* 
 Rosalind ran to a window, opened it, 
 and let in a flood of sunshine* I con 
 fess I was beginning to feel a little 
 heartsick, but when the light fell on 
 her I remembered the rainy day in 
 Arden, when the first rays after the 
 
 storm touched her and dispelled the 
 
 117 
 
 ;;/. ,,..,.. r ,,.. - ; 
 
 HBS 
 

 gloom, and I realised, with a joy too 
 deep for words or tears, that 1 1 had 
 brought the best of Arden with me.[ 
 We talked little during those first days 
 of our home-coming, but we set the 
 house in order, we recalled to the 
 lonely rooms the old associations, and 
 we quietly took up the cares and bur 
 dens we had dropped. It was not 
 easy at first, and there were days when 
 we were both heartsore; but we waited 
 and worked and hoped. Our neigh 
 bours found us more silent and absorbed 
 than of old, but neither that change nor 
 our absence seemed to have made 
 any impression upon them. Indeed, we 
 even doubted if they knew that we 
 had taken such a journey. Day by 
 day we stepped into the old places and 
 fell into the old habits, until all the 
 broken threads of our life were reunited 
 and we were apparently as much a part 
 of the world as if we had never gone 
 
 nS 
 
 
 
 
 

 out of it and found a nobler and happier 
 sphere. 
 
 But there came to us gradually a 
 clear consciousness that, though we 
 were in the world, we were not of it, | 
 nor ever again could be. It was no ]/ 
 longer our world; its standards, its 
 thoughts, its pleasures, were not for us* ; 
 We were not lonely in it; on the con 
 trary, when the first impression of 
 strangeness wore off, we were happier 
 than we had ever been in the old days* 
 Our reputation was no longer in the 
 breath of men; our fortune was no [ 
 longer at the mercy of rising or falling 
 markets; our plans and hopes were no 
 longer subject to chance and change* 
 We had a possession in the Forest of \ 
 Arden, and we had friends and dreams 
 there beyond the empire of time and 
 fate* And when we compared the \ 
 security of our fortunes with the vicis 
 situdes to which the estates of our ; 
 
neighbours were exposed; when we 
 compared our noble-hearted friends 
 with their meaner companionships; 
 when we compared the peaceful seren 
 ity of our hearts with their perplexities 
 and anxieties, we were filled with in 
 expressible sympathy. We no longer 
 pierced them with the arrows of satire 
 and wit because they accepted lower 
 standards and found pleasure in things 
 essentially pleasureless ; they had not 
 lived in Arden, and why should we 
 berate them for not possessing that 
 which had never been within their 
 reach ? We saw that upon those whom 
 an inscrutable fate has led through the 
 paths of Arden a great and noble duty 
 is laid. They are not to be the scorners 
 and despisers of those whose eyes are 
 holden that they cannot see, and whose 
 ears are stopped that they cannot hear, 
 the vision and the melody of things 
 ideal. They are rather to be eyes to 
 
 
are to interpret in unshaken trust and 
 patience that which has been revealed 
 to them ; servants are they of the Ideal, 
 and their ministry is their exceeding great 
 reward* So long as they see clearly, 
 it is small matter to them that their 
 message is rejected, the mighty conso 
 lation which they bring refused; their 
 joy does not hang on acceptance or 
 rejection at the hands of their fellows* 
 The only real losers are those who will 
 not see nor hear* It is not the light- 
 bringer who suffers when the torch is 
 torn from his hands ; it is those whose 
 paths he would lighten* 
 
 And more and more, as the days 
 went by, Rosalind and I found the life 
 of the Forest stealing into our old 
 home* The old monotony was gone; 
 the old weariness and depression crossed 
 our threshold no more* If work was 
 pressing, we were always looking 
 
looking into 
 
 ^lg| Rosalind s eyes? It matters little 8 
 whether I have travelled or dreamed; p|?F 
 where Rosalind is, there, for me at least, Mm 
 lies the Forest of Arden, 
 
Tl 
 
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