stream and the water-plants that hide it, the
blue hills beyond the nearer wood--the dear familiar things; but even so
the road which passes through the fields, over the bridge, up the
covert-side ... it leads somewhere, and the heart on sunny days leaps up
to follow it! Talking with you here, I feel a hunger for something wider
and more free; your voice has the sound of the wind, with the secret
knowledge of strange hill-tops and solitary seas! Sometimes the heart
settles down upon what it knows and loves, but sometimes it reaches out
to all the love and beauty hidden in the world, and in the waters beyond
the world, and would embrace it all if it could. The faces one sees as
one passes through unfamiliar cities or villages, how one longs to talk,
to question, to ask what gave them the look they wear.... And you, if I
may say it, seem to have passed beyond the need of wanting or desiring
anything ... but I must not talk thus to a stranger; you must forgive
me."

"Forgive you?" said the stranger; "that is only an earthly phrase--the
old terror of indiscretion and caution. What are we here for but to get
acquainted with one another--to let our inmost thoughts talk together?
In the world we are bounded by time and space, and we have the terror of
each other's glances and exteriors to contend with. We make friends on
earth in spite of our limitations; but in heaven we get to know each
other's hearts; and that blessing goes back with us to the dim fields
and narrow houses of the earth. I see plainly enough that you are not
perfectly happy; but one can only win content through discontent. Where
you are now, you are not in accord with the souls about you. Never mind
that! There are beautiful spirits within reach of your hand and heart; a
little clouded by mistaking the quality of joy, no doubt, but great and
everlasting for all that. You must try to draw near to them, and find
spirits to love. Do you not remember in the days of earth how one felt
sometimes in an unfamiliar place--among a gathering of strangers--at
church perhaps, or at some school which one visited, where one saw the
young faces, which showed so clearly, before the world had stamped
itself in frowns and heaviness upon them, the quality of the soul
within? Don't you remember the feeling at such times of how many there
were in the world whom one might love, if one had leisure and
opportunity and energy? Well, there is no need to resist that, or to
deplore it h