e shrubbery, in which, though the lilacs were
faded, the laburnum still retained here and there the waning gold of its
clusters, Kenelm came into a recess which bounded his steps and invited
him to repose. It was a circle, so formed artificially by slight
trellises, to which clung parasite roses heavy with leaves and flowers.
In the midst played a tiny fountain with a silvery murmuring sound; at
the background, dominating the place, rose the crests of stately trees,
on which the sunlight shimmered, but which rampired out all horizon
beyond. Even as in life do the great dominant passions--love, ambition,
desire of power or gold or fame or knowledge--form the proud background
to the brief-lived flowerets of our youth, lift our eyes beyond the
smile of their bloom, catch the glint of a loftier sunbeam, and yet,
and yet, exclude our sight from the lengths and the widths of the space
which extends behind and beyond them.

Kenelm threw himself on the turf beside the fountain. From afar came the
whoop and the laugh of the children in their sports or their dance. At
the distance their joy did not sadden him,--he marvelled why; and thus,
in musing revery, thought to explain the why to himself.

"The poet," so ran his lazy thinking, "has told us that 'distance lends
enchantment to the view,' and thus compares to the charm of distance
the illusion of hope. But the poet narrows the scope of his own
illustration. Distance lends enchantment to the ear as well as to the
sight; nor to these bodily senses alone. Memory no less than hope owes
its charm to 'the far away.'

"I cannot imagine myself again a child when I am in the midst of
young noisy children. But as their noise reaches me here, subdued and
mellowed, and knowing, thank Heaven, that the urchins are not within
reach of me, I could readily dream myself back into childhood, and into
sympathy with the lost playfields of school.

"So surely it must be with grief: how different the terrible agony for
a beloved one just gone from earth, to the soft regret for one who
disappeared into Heaven years ago! So with the art of poetry: how
imperatively, when it deals with the great emotions of tragedy, it must
remove the actors from us, in proportion as the emotions are to elevate,
and the tragedy is to please us by the tears it draws! Imagine our shock
if a poet were to place on the stage some wise gentleman with whom we
dined yesterday, and who was discovered to have killed his father