rives to outshine his neighbour or to encumber the free and joyous
play of his life with those luxuries which are only another name for
care. Our modest little home sheltered but did not enslave us; it held
a door open for all the sweet ministries of affection, but it was
barred against anxiety and care; birds sang at its flower-embowered
windows, and the fragrance of the beautiful days lingered there, but no
sound from the world of those that strive and struggle ever entered.
We were joyous as children in a home which protected our bodies while
it set our spirits at liberty; which gave us the sweetness of rest and
seclusion, while it left us free to use the ample leisure of the Forest
and to drink deep of its rich and healthful life. Vine-covered,
overshadowed by the pine, with the olive standing in friendly
neighbourhood, our home in Arden seemed at the same time part of the
Forest and part of ourselves. If it had grown out of the soil, it
could not have fitted into the landscape with less suggestion of
artifice and construction; indeed, Nature had furnished all the
materials, and when the simple structure was complete she claimed it
again and made it her own with endless device of moss and vine.
Without, it seemed part of the Forest; within, it seemed the visible
history of our life there. Friends came and went through the unlatched
door; morning broke radiant through the latticed window; the seasons
enfolded it with their changing life; our own fellowship of mind and
heart made it unspeakably sacred. Love and loyalty within; noble
friends at the hearthstone; soft or shining heavens above; mystery of
forest and music of stream without: this is home in Arden.

VIII

. . . books in the running brooks.

In the days before we went to Arden, Rosalind and I had often wondered
what books we should find there, and we had anticipated with the
keenest curiosity that in the mere presence or absence of certain books
we should discover at last the final principle of criticism, the
absolute standard of literary art. Many a time as we sat before the
study fire and finished the reading of some volume that had yielded us
unmixed delight, we had said to each other that we should surely find
it in Arden, and read it again in an atmosphere in which the most
delicate and beautiful meanings would become as clear as the exquisite
tracery of frost on the study windows. That we should find all the
classics there we had not