on
the book and cried like a child. I don't think there was a dry eye in
the room. And these boys were not sentimental, but straightforward
young men of the world, honest, and, if anything, rather contemptuous,
I had thought, of anything emotional. I have never forgotten that
scene, and have interpreted many things in the light of it.

Well, this morning I woke early and heard all the bustle of departure.
Depression fell on me; soon I got up, with a blessed sense of leisure,
breakfasted at my ease, saw one or two boys, special friends, who came
to me very grave and wistful. Then I wrote letters and did business;
and this afternoon--it is fearfully hot--I have been for a stroll
through the deserted fields and street.

So another of these beautiful things which we call the summer half is
over, never to be renewed. There has been some evil, of course. I wish
I could think otherwise. But the tone is good, and there have been none
of those revelations of darkness that poison the mind. There has been
idleness (I don't much regret that), and of course the usual worries.
But the fact remains that a great number of happy, sensible boys have
been living perhaps the best hours of their life, with equal, pleasant
friendships, plenty of games, some wholesome work and discipline to
keep all sweet, with this exquisite background of old towers and
high-branching elms, casting their shade over rich meadow-grass; the
scene will come back to these boys in weary hours, perhaps in sun-baked
foreign lands, perhaps in smoky offices--nay, even on aching deathbeds,
parched with fever.

The whole place has an incredibly wistful air, as though it missed the
young life that circulated all about it; as though it spread its
beauties out to be used and enjoyed, and wondered why none came to
claim them. As a counterpoise to this I like to think of all the
happiness flowing into hundreds of homes; the father and mother waiting
for the sound of the wheels that bring the boy back; the children who
have gone down to the lodge to welcome the big brothers with shouts and
kisses; and the boy himself, with all the dear familiar scene and home
faces opening out before him. We ought not to grudge the loneliness
here before the thought of all those old and blessed joys of life that
are being renewed elsewhere.

But I am here, a lonely man, wondering and doubting and desiring I
hardly know what. Some nearness of life, some children of my own. You
are apt to