his
whole thought into words there; half the need of language vanishes when
we say only what we mean, and what we say is heard with sympathy and
intelligence. Rosalind and I were thinking the same thought.
Yesterday we had discovered that an open mind, freedom from work and
care and turmoil, make it possible for people to be their true selves
and to know each other. To-day we had discovered that Nature reveals
herself only to the open mind and heart; to all others she is deaf and
dumb. The worldling who seeks her never sees so much as the hem of her
garment; the egotist, the self-engrossed man, searches in vain for her
counsel and consolation; the over-anxious, fretful soul finds her
indifferent and incommunicable. We may seek her far and wide, with
minds intent upon other things, and she will forever elude us; but on
the morning we open our windows with a free mind, she is there to break
for us the seal of her treasures and to pour out the perfume of her
flowers. She is cold, remote, inaccessible only so long as we close
the doors of our hearts and minds to her. With the drudges and slaves
of mere getting and saving she has nothing in common; but with those
who hold their souls above the price of the world and the bribe of
success she loves to share her repose, her strength, and her beauty.
In Arden Rosalind and I cared as little for the world we had left as
children intent upon daisies care for the dust of the road out of which
they have come into the wide meadows.

VI

Here feel we but the penalty of Adam,
The season's difference, as the icy fang
And churlish chiding of the winter wind,
Which, when it bites and blows upon my body,
Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say,
This is no flattery: these are counsellors
That feelingly persuade me what I am.

If the ideal conditions of life, of which most of us dream, could be
realised, the result would be a padded and luxurious existence,
well-housed, well-fed, well-dressed, with all the winds of heaven
tempered to indolence and cowardice. We are saved from absolute shame
by the consciousness that if such a life were possible we should
speedily revolt against the comforts that flattered the body while they
ignored the soul. In Arden there is no such compromise with our
immoral desires to get results without work, to buy without paying for
what we receive. Nature keeps no running accounts and suffers no man
to get in her debt; she de