rest; perhaps even to make a home for myself there. But
one's dreams must often wait for their realisation, and so it has come
to pass that I have gone all these years without personal familiarity
with these beautiful scenes. I have since learned that one never comes
to the Forest until he is thoroughly prepared in heart and mind, and I
understand now that I could not have come earlier even if I had made
the attempt. As it happened, I concerned myself with other things, and
never approached very near the Forest, although never very far from it.
I was never quite happy unless I caught frequent glimpses of its
distant boughs, and I searched more and more eagerly for those who had
left some record of their journeys to the Forest, and of their life
within its magical boundaries. I discovered, to my great joy, that the
libraries were full of books which had much to say about the delights
of Arden: its enchanting scenery; the music of its brooks; the sweet
and refreshing repose of its recesses; the noble company that frequent
it. I soon found that all the greater poets have been there, and that
their lines had caught the magical radiance of the sky; and many of the
prose writers showed the same familiarity with a country in which they
evidently found whatever was sweetest and best in life. I came to know
at last those whose knowledge of Arden was most complete, and I put
them in a place by themselves; a corner in the study to which Rosalind
and I went for the books we read together. I would gladly give a list
of these works but for the fact I have already hinted--that those who
would understand their references to Arden will come to know them
without aid from me, and that those who would not understand could find
nothing in them even if I should give page and paragraph. It was a
great surprise to me, when I first began to speak of the Forest, to
find that most people scouted the very idea of such a country; many did
not even understand what I meant. Many a time, at sunset, when the
light has lain soft and tender on the distant Forest, I have pointed it
out, only to be told that what I thought was the Forest was a splendid
pile of clouds, a shining mass of mist. I came to understand at last
that Arden exists only for a few, and I ceased to talk about it save to
those who shared my faith. Gradually I came to number among my friends
many who were in the habit of making frequent journeys to the Forest,
and not a few who