At what inaudible summons, at what gentle touch of Nature, are all these sleepers thus recalled in the same hour to life? Do the stars rain down an influence, or do we share some thrill of mother earth below our resting bodies? Even shepherds and old country-folk, who are the deepest 5 read in these arcana, have not a guess as to the means or purpose of this nightly resurrection. Towards two in the morning they declare the thing takes place; and neither know nor inquire further. And at least it is a pleasant incident. We are disturbed in our slumber, 10 only like the luxurious Montaigne, "that we may the better and more sensibly relish it." We have a moment to look up on the stars. And there is a special pleasure for some minds in the reflection that we share the impulse with all outdoor creatures in our neighborhood, that we 15 have escaped out of the Bastille of civilization, and are become, for the time being, a mere kindly animal and a sheep of Nature's flock. When that hour came to me among the pines, I wakened thirsty. My tin was standing by me half full of water. 20 I emptied it at a draft; and feeling broad awake after this internal cold aspersion, sat upright to make a cigarette. The stars were clear, colored, jewel-like, but not frosty. A faint silvery vapor stood for the Milky Way. All around me the black fir-points stood upright and 25 stock-still. By the whiteness of the pack-saddle, I could see Modestine walking round and round at the length of the tether; I could hear her steadily munching at the sward; but there was not another sound, save the indescribable quiet talk of the runnel over the stones. I lay 30 lazily smoking and studying the color of the sky, as we call the void of space, from where it showed a reddish gray behind the pines to where it showed a glossy blue black between the stars. As if to be more like a pedler, I wear a silver ring. This I could see faintly shining as I raised or lowered the cigarette; and at each whiff the inside of my hand was illuminated and became for a 5 second the highest light in the landscape. A faint wind, more like a moving coldness than a stream of air, passed down the glade from time to time; so that even in my great chamber the air was being renewed all night long. I thought with horror of the inn at Chasser10 adès and the congregated nightcaps; with horror of the nocturnal prowesses of clerks and students, of hot theatres and pass-keys and close rooms. I have not often enjoyed a more serene possession of myself, nor felt more independent of material aids. The outer world, from which 15 we cower into our houses, seemed after all a gentle habitable place; and night after night a man's bed, it seemed, was laid and waiting for him in the fields, where God keeps an open house. I thought I had rediscovered one of those truths which are revealed to savages and hid from 20 political economists: at the least I had discovered a new pleasure for myself. And yet even while I was exulting in my solitude I became aware of a strange lack. I wished a companion to be near me in the starlight, silent and not moving, but ever within touch. For there is a 25 fellowship more quiet even than solitude, and which, rightly understood, is solitude made perfect. And to live out of doors with the woman a man loves is of all lives the most complete and free. I AM no botanist, but I have long found pleasure in herbgathering. I love to come upon a plant which is unknown to me, to identify it with the help of my book, to greet it by name when next it shines beside my path. If the plant be rare, its discovery gives me joy. Nature, the 5 great Artist, makes her common flowers in the common view; no word in human language can express the marvel and loveliness even of what we call the vulgarest weed, but these are fashioned under the gaze of every passer-by. The rare flower is shaped apart, in places secret, in the 10 Artist's subtler mood; to find it is to enjoy the sense of admission to a holier precinct. Even in my gladness I am awed. To-day I have walked far, and at the end of my walk I found the little white-flowered woodruff. It grew in a 15 copse of young ash. When I had looked long at the flower, I delighted myself with the grace of the slim trees about it their shining smoothness, their olive hue. Hard by stood a bush of wych elm; its tettered bark, overlined as if with the character of some unknown tongue, made 20 the young ashes yet more beautiful. It matters not how long I wander. There is no task to bring me back; no one will be vexed or uneasy, linger I ever so late. Spring is shining upon these lanes and meadows; I feel as if I must follow every winding track 25 that opens by my way. Spring has restored to me some thing of the long-forgotten vigor of youth; I walk without weariness; I sing to myself like a boy, and the song is one I knew in boyhood. he was That reminds me of an incident. Near a hamlet, in a 5 lonely spot by a woodside, I came upon a little lad of perhaps ten years old, who, his head hidden in his arms against a tree trunk, was crying bitterly. I asked him what was the matter, and, after a little troublebetter than a mere bumpkin I learnt that, having been 10 sent with sixpence to pay a debt, he had lost the money. The poor little fellow was in a state of mind which in a grave man would be called the anguish of despair; he must have been crying for a long time; every muscle in his face quivered as if under torture, his limbs shook; 15 his eyes, his voice, uttered such misery as only the vilest criminal should be made to suffer. And it was because he had lost sixpence ! I could have shed tears with him- tears of pity and of rage at all this spectacle implied. On a day of indescrib20 able glory, when earth and heaven shed benedictions upon the soul of man, a child, whose nature would have bidden him rejoice as only childhood may, wept his heart out because his hand had dropped a sixpenny piece! The loss was a very serious one, and he knew it; he was less 25 afraid to face his parents, than overcome by misery at the thought of the harm he had done them. Sixpence dropped by the wayside, and a whole family made wretched! What are the due descriptive terms for a state of "civilization" in which such a thing as this is possible? I put 30 my hand into my pocket, and wrought sixpennyworth of miracle. It took me half an hour to recover my quiet mind. After all, it is as idle to rage against man's fatuity as to |