owess, and who waits in
Avilion, the "Isle of Apples," for the call that shall summon him back
from Paradise.

I am going a long way
With these thou seest--if indeed I go
(For all my mind is clouded with a doubt)--
To the island-valley of Avilion;
Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow,
Nor even wind blows loudly; but it lies
Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard lawns
And bowery hollows crown'd with summer sea,
Where I will heal me of my grievous wound.

Chapter III

Along the Road

I

Since I turned the key on my study I have almost forgotten the familiar
titles on which my eye rested whenever I took a survey of my
book-shelves. Those friends stanch and true, with whom I have held
such royal fellowship when skies were chill and winds were cold, will
not forget me, nor shall I become unfaithful to them. I have gone
abroad that I may return later with renewed zest and deeper insight to
my old companionships. Books and nature are never inimical; they
mutually speak for and interpret each other; and only he who stands
where their double light falls sees things in true perspective and in
right relations.

The road along whose winding course I have been making a delightful
pilgrimage to-day has the double charm of natural beauty and of human
association; it is old, as age is reckoned in this new world; it has
grown hard under the tread of sleeping generations, and the great
figures of history have passed over it in their journeys between the
two great cities which mark its limits. In the earlier days it was the
king's highway, and along its up-hill and down-dale course the
battalions of royal troops marched and counter-marched to the call of
bugles that have gone silent these hundred years and more. It is a
road of varied fortunes, like many of those who have passed over it; it
is sometimes rich in all manner of priceless possessions, and again it
is barren, poverty-stricken, and desolate. It climbs long hills,
sometimes in a roundabout, hesitating, half-hearted way, and sometimes
with an abrupt and breathless ascent; at the summit it seems to pause a
moment as if to invite the traveller to survey the splendid domain
which it commands. On one side, in such a restful moment, one sees the
wide circle of waters, stretching far off to a horizon which rests on
clusters of islands and marks the limits of the world; in the
foreground, and sweeping around the other points of th