imeval melody, which the woods sang before their
solitude had been invaded by the eager feet of men always searching for
something which they do not possess. I felt the spell of that mighty
life which includes the tempest and the tumult of winds and waves among
the myriad voices with which it speaks its marvellous secret. Half the
meaning would go out of Nature if no storms ever dimmed the light of
stars or vexed the calm of summer seas. It is the infinite variety of
Nature which fits response to every need and mood, renews forever the
freshness of contact with her, and holds us by a power of which we
never weary because we never exhaust its resources.

"After all, Rosalind," I said, "it was not the storms and the cold
which made our old life hard, and gave Nature an unfriendly aspect; it
was the things in our human experience which gave tempest and winter a
meaning not their own. In a world in which all hearts beat true, and
all hands were helpful, there would be no real hardship in Nature. It
is the loss, sorrow, weariness, and disappointment of life which give
dark days their gloom, and cold its icy edge, and work its bitterness.
The real sorrows of life are not of Nature's making; if faithlessness
and treachery and every sort of baseness were taken out of human lives,
we should find only a healthy and vigorous joy in such hardship as
Nature imposes upon us. Upon men of sound, sweet life, she lays only
such burdens as strength delights to carry, because in so doing it
increases itself."

"That is true," said Rosalind. "The day is dark only when the mind is
dark; all weathers are pleasant when the heart is at rest. There are
rainy days in Arden, but no gloomy ones; there are probably cold days,
but none that chill the soul."

I do not know whether it was Rosalind's smile or the sudden breaking of
the sun through the clouds that made the room brilliant; probably it
was both. Rosalind opened the lattice, and I saw that the rain had
ceased. The drops still hung on every leaf, but the clouds were
breaking into great shining masses, and the blue of the sky was of
unsearchable purity and depth. The sun poured a flood of light into
the heart of the Forest, and suddenly every tiny drop, that a moment
ago might have seemed a symbol of sorrow, held the radiant sun on its
little disk, and every sphere shone as if a universe of fairy creation
had been suddenly breathed into being. And the splendour touched
Rosalind