r sail. He was as intent as
if he were God observing the progress of Columbus, knowing now that
America is about to be found.

If that boy had but guessed what I knew! But he had not read the latest
news. It is the privilege of knowledge to be superior and grave; to be
able to smile sadly at the dream of a Golden Galleon which childhood sees
in April by the Serpentine; for knowledge is aware of the truth, the
tumult surrounding us of contentious lunatics, endless, inexplicable; the
noise of mankind in its upward journey towards the eclipse, or some other
heavenly mystery.

Presently that tinted mist which was a tree in flower began to shine
again through the dark noise which the papers had made. The uproar
cleared a little. The water came nearer, its glittering growing
stronger, its fire burning towards me. I saw in surprise through the
gloom in my mind that the fire had touched the elms; their dark masses
were faintly luminous. And the mallard drake, riding on the outer pulses
of that radiation, was purple and emerald. But would the beauty of the
spring surprise us, I wonder; would it still give the mind a twinge,
sadden us with a nameless disquiet, shoot through us so keen an anguish
when the almond tree is there again on a bright day, if we were decent,
healthy, and happy creatures? Perhaps not. It is hard to say. It is a
great while since our skinless and touchy crowds of the wonderful
industrial era, moving as one man to the words of the daily papers, were
such creatures. Perhaps we should merely yawn and stretch ourselves, feel
revived with the sun a little warmer on our backs, and snuff up a
pleasant smell which we remembered; begin to whistle, and grope for an
adze.

But we cannot have it so. The spring is not for us. We have been so
inventive. We have desired other things, and we have got them. We have
cleverly made a way of life that exacts so close an attention, if we
would save it from disaster, that we are now its prisoners. Peace and
freedom have become but a vision which the imprisoned view through the
bars they themselves have made. The spring we see now is in a world not
ours, a world we have left, which is still close to us, but is
unapproachable. The children are in it, and even, apparently, the ducks.
It is a world we see sometimes, as a reminder--once a year or so--of what
we could have made of life, and what we have.

Which is the real world? I worried over that as I was leaving the park. I
se