ull round of his
wayfarings on many streets with the ease and satisfaction of his
attitude on the sands. Then the night comes. The dancers are busy, the
commonplace music is made refined by distance, and the murmur of the sea
gathers power over all other sounds, until the noon of night arrives and
the last merry voices are heard no more. Poor harmless revellers, so
condemned by men whose round of life is a search for pleasure! Many of
you do not understand or care for quiet refinements of dress and
demeanour; you lack restraint; but I have felt much gladness while
demurely watching your abandonment. I could draw rest for my soul from
the magnetic night long after you were aweary and asleep; but much of my
pleasure came as a reflection from yours.

As my memories of sweetness--yes, and of purifying sadness--gather more
thickly, I am minded to wonder that so much has been vouchsafed me
rather than to mourn over shadowy might-have-beens. The summer day by
the deep lovely lake--the lake within sound of the sea! All round the
steep walls that shut in the dark glossy water there hung rank festoons
and bosses of brilliant green, and the clear reflections of the weeds
and flowers hung so far down in the mysterious deeps that the height of
the rocky wall seemed stupendous. Far over in one tremendously deep
pool the lazy great fish wallowed and lunged; they would not show their
speckled sides very much until the evening; but they kept sleepily
moving all day, and sometimes a mighty back would show like a log for an
instant. In the morning the modest ground-larks cheeped softly among the
rough grasses on the low hills, while the proud heaven-scaler--the
lordly kinsman of the ground-lark--filled the sky with his lovely
clamour. Sometimes a water-rail would come out from the sedges and walk
on the surface of the lake as a tiny ostrich might on the shifting sand;
pretty creatures of all sorts seemed to find their homes near the deep
wonderful water, and the whole morning might be passed in silently
watching the birds and beasts that came around. The gay sun made streams
of silver fire shoot from the polished brackens and sorrel, the purple
geraniums gleamed like scattered jewels, and the birds seemed to be
joyful in presence of that manifold beauty--joyful as the quiet human
being who watched them all. And the little fishes in the shallows would
have their fun as well. They darted hither and thither; the spiny
creatures which the sch