flying land--England, England with her gentle
homesteads, her people of the gentle voices; and the unknown wonder of
that other land, soon to change its exquisite dream-features for the
still more thrilling, appealing marvel of reality--could it all be true?
Was this the response of the genius of the ring, the magic ring that we
call _will_? And would the complaisant genius always appear and obey
one's behests, in this strange fashion?

Thoughts ran on rhythmically, in the steady, flashing movement through
verdant England. The Real! _that_ was the truly exquisite, the truly
great, the true realm of the imagination! What imagination was ever born
to conceive or compass it?

A rattle under a bridge, a roar through a tunnel, and on again, through
Kentish orchards. A time of blossoming. Disjointed, delicious
impressions followed one another in swift succession, often
superficially incoherent, but threaded deep, in the stirred
consciousness, on a silver cord:--the unity of the creation was as
obvious as its multiplicity.

Images of the Past joined hands with visions of the Future. In these
sweet green meadows, men had toiled, as thralls, but a few lifetimes
ago, and they had gathered together, as Englishmen do, first to protest
and reasonably demand, and then to buy their freedom with their lives.
Their countrywoman sent a message of thanksgiving, backward through the
centuries, to these stout champions of the land's best heritage, and
breathed an aspiration to be worthy of the kinship that she claimed.

The rattle and roar grew into a symphony--full, rich, magnificent, and
then, with a rush, came a stirring musical conception: it seized the
imagination.

Oh, why were they stopping? It was a little country station, but many
passengers were on the platform. A careworn looking woman and a little
girl entered the carriage, and the little girl fixed her eyes on her
fellow-traveller with singular persistence. Then the more practical
features of the occasion came into view, and all had an enthralling
quality of reality--poetry. The sound of the waiting engine breathing
out its white smoke into the brilliant air, the powerful creature
quiescent but ready, with the turn of a handle, to put forth its
slumbering might; the crunching of footsteps on the gravel, the
wallflowers and lilacs in the little station garden, the blue of the
sky, and ah! the sweetness of the air when one leant out to look along
the interminable straight l