th her--witches on broomsticks circling closely round him, demons in
pursuit of him or waiting to leap out on him. And how about mere robbers
and cutthroats? Suppose--but look! that streak, yonder, look!--the
Golden Drugget.

There it is, familiar, serene, festal. That the pilgrim knew he would
see it in due time does not diminish for him the queer joy of seeing
it; nay, this emotion would be far less without that foreknowledge. Some
things are best at first sight. Others--and here is one of them--do
ever improve by recognition. I remember that when first I beheld this
steady strip of light, shed forth over a threshold level with the road,
it seemed to me conceivably sinister. It brought Stevenson to my
mind: the chink of doubloons and the clash of cutlasses; and I think I
quickened pace as I passed it. But now!--now it inspires in me a sense
of deep trust and gratitude; and such awe as I have for it is altogether
a loving awe, as for holy ground that should he trod lightly. A drugget
of crimson cloth across a London pavement is rather resented by the
casual passer-by, as saying to him 'Step across me, stranger, but not
along me, not in!' and for answer he spurns it with his heel. 'Stranger,
come in!' is the clear message of the Golden Drugget. 'This is but a
humble and earthly hostel, yet you will find here a radiant company of
angels and archangels.' And always I cherish the belief that if I
obeyed the summons I should receive fulfilment of the promise. Well, the
beliefs that one most cherishes one is least willing to test. I do not
go in at that open door. But lingering, but reluctant, is my tread as I
pass by it; and I pause to bathe in the light that is as the span of our
human life, granted between one great darkness and another.

HOSTS AND GUESTS 1918.

Beautifully vague though the English language is, with its meanings
merging into one another as softly as the facts of landscape in the
moist English climate, and much addicted though we always have been to
ways of compromise, and averse from sharp hard logical outlines, we do
not call a host a guest, nor a guest a host. The ancient Romans did
so. They, with a language that was as lucid as their climate and was a
perfect expression of the sharp hard logical outlook fostered by that
climate, had but one word for those two things. Nor have their equally
acute descendants done what might have been expected of them in this
matter. Hate and spite are as mysteri