ny
morning of spring sunshine, how many mortals find themselves so much at
peace that they are able to give themselves wholly to delight in the
glory of heaven and of earth? Is it the case with one man in every fifty
thousand? Consider what extraordinary kindness of fate must tend upon
one, that not a care, not a preoccupation, should interfere with his
contemplative thought for five or six days successively! So rooted in
the human mind (and so reasonably rooted) is the belief in an Envious
Power, that I ask myself whether I shall not have to pay, by some
disaster, for this period of sacred calm. For a week or so I have been
one of a small number, chosen out of the whole human race by fate's
supreme benediction. It may be that this comes to every one in turn; to
most, it can only be once in a lifetime, and so briefly. That my own lot
seems so much better than that of ordinary men, sometimes makes me
fearful.

XXV.

Walking in a favourite lane to-day, I found it covered with shed blossoms
of the hawthorn. Creamy white, fragrant even in ruin, lay scattered the
glory of the May. It told me that spring is over.

Have I enjoyed it as I should? Since the day that brought me freedom,
four times have I seen the year's new birth, and always, as the violet
yielded to the rose, I have known a fear that I had not sufficiently
prized this boon of heaven whilst it was with me. Many hours I have
spent shut up among my books, when I might have been in the meadows. Was
the gain equivalent? Doubtfully, diffidently, I hearken what the mind
can plead.

I recall my moments of delight, the recognition of each flower that
unfolded, the surprise of budding branches clothed in a night with green.
The first snowy gleam upon the blackthorn did not escape me. By its
familiar bank, I watched for the earliest primrose, and in its copse I
found the anemone. Meadows shining with buttercups, hollows sunned with
the marsh marigold held me long at gaze. I saw the sallow glistening
with its cones of silvery fur, and splendid with dust of gold. These
common things touch me with more of admiration and of wonder each time I
behold them. They are once more gone. As I turn to summer, a misgiving
mingles with my joy.

SUMMER

I.

To-day, as I was reading in the garden, a waft of summer perfume--some
hidden link of association in what I read--I know not what it may have
been--took me back to school-boy holidays; I reco