the States, and reported that it
was a long time before he could get accustomed to the aroma of the white
man's civilisation. Newchwang was long on the vine at that very moment,
but he did not get that. I did not tell him. That which we are, we do
not sense. Our surfaces are only open to that which we are not. We must
depart from our place and ourselves, in order to catch even a fleeting
glimpse, or scent, of our being. The Abbot and I lifted our noses high.
The post-office was thick with staleness that held its own, though
chilled. I was glad to have the horse feel as I did, and clear out for
the edge of the Lake where we belonged.

... We went many days that Spring. The town thought us quite bereft. We
were present for the hawthorn day; saw the ineffable dogwoods at their
highest best; the brief bloom of the hickories when they put on their
orchids and seemed displeased to be caught in such glory by human eyes.
I love the colour and texture of hickory wood, but it insists on
choosing its own place to live.... We saw the elms breaking another day,
and the beech leaves come forth from their wonderful twists of brown,
formed the Fall before. Everything about the beech-tree is of the
highest and most careful selection; no other tree seems so to have
forgotten itself; a noble nature that has lost the need of insisting its
demands and making its values known, having long since called unto
itself the perfect things.... There was one early May day of high
northwind, that we entered the beech-wood, and saw those forest lengths
of trunk swaying in a kind of planetary rhythm. Full-length the beeches
gave, and returned so slowly, a sweeping vibration of their own, too
slow and vast for us to sense. I thought of a group of the great women
of the future gathered together to ordain the way of life. There is no
holier place than a beech-wood....

The Abbot's father repaired the cabin for us--put in the fireplace and
the windows to the north. Many nights the Chapel kindred have spent
there, in part or as a party; and it is the centre of the wonderful days
of our Spring Questing, when humankind brings a thirst almost
intolerable for the resuming of the Mother's magic.... We want it a
place some day for many of the great little books of all time--the place
for the Stranger to lodge and for Youth to come into its own. The
Abbot's father who has made it all possible seems to like the dream,
too.

... But the Abbot has gone back to sch