sed to sing its mighty
hymn of solitude and mystery. There was something impressive in the
consciousness of our isolation; between us and any noise of human
occupation the waters were stretched as a barrier against which all
sound died into silence. There was something enchanting in the beauty
and strangeness of this tiny continent, unreported by any geography,
unmarked on any chart save that which a few possess as a kind of sacred
heritage, untravelled as yet by our eager feet. There was something
thrilling in the associations that touched the island with such a light
as never fell from sun or star. With beating hearts we set out on that
wondrous exploration. Who does not remember the thrill of the first
discovery of a new world; that joy of the soul in possession of a great
new truth which passes all speech? There are hours in this troubled
life when the mists are lifted and float away like faint clouds against
the blue, and the great world lies like a splendid vision before us,
and "the immeasurable heavens break open to the highest," and in a
sudden rift of human limitation the whole sublime order opens before
us, sings to us out of the fathomless depths of its harmony, thrills us
with a sudden sense of God and of the undiscovered range and splendour
of our lives; and when they have passed, these hours remain with us in
the afterglow of clearer vision and deeper faith. Such hours are the
peculiar joy of those who hold the key of the Imagination in their
grasp and are able to unlock the gate of dreams, or make themselves the
companion of the great explorers in the realms of truth and beauty.
These are the secret joys which people solitude and make the quiet days
one long draught of inspiration.

In such a mood our quest began and ended. We skirted the beach; we
plunged deep into the recesses of the woods; we stretched ourselves on
the broad expanse of greensward in the shade of the great boughs; we
followed the rivulet to the hushed and shadowy solitude where it issued
from the moss-grown rock; wherever we bent our step the song of the sea
followed us, and the day was calm and cool as with its breadth and
freshness. The island had its own beauty; the beauty of virgin forests
and untrodden paths, of a certain fragrant sweetness gathered in years
of untroubled solitude, of a certain pastoral repose such as comes to
Nature when man is remote but that which gave us the thrill of
something strangely sweet and sat