ple talk about their dreams. It is a genre picture,
full of simple detail, but with a vein of high poetry about it; all
remote from history and civic life, in that eternal region of perfect
and quiet art, into which, thank God, one can always turn to rest
awhile.

But to-day I don't want to talk of fishermen, or Theocritus, or even
art; I want you to share one of my dreams.

I must preface it by saying that I have just experienced a severe
humiliation; I have been deeply wounded. I won't trouble you with the
sordid details, but it has been one of those severe checks one
sometimes experiences, when a mirror is held up to one's character, and
one sees an ugly sight. Never mind that now! But you can imagine my
frame of mind.

I bicycled off alone in the afternoon, feeling very sore and miserable
in spirit. It was one of those cool, fresh, dark November days, not so
much gloomy as half-lit and colourless. There was not a breath
stirring. The long fields, the fallows, with hedges and coverts, melted
into a light mist, which hid all the distant view. I moved in a narrow
twilight circle, myself the centre; the road was familiar enough to me;
at a certain point there is a little lodge, with a road turning off to
a farm. It is many years since I visited the place, but I remembered
dimly that there was some interest of antiquity about the house, and I
determined to explore it. The road curved away among quiet fields, with
here and there a belt of woodland, then entered a little park; there I
saw a cluster of buildings on the edge of a pool, all grown up with
little elms and ashes, now bare of leaves. Here I found a friendly,
gaitered farmer, who, in reply to my question whether I could see the
place, gave me a cordial invitation to come in; he took me to a garden
door, opened it, and beckoned me to go through. I found myself in a
place of incomparable beauty. It was a long terrace, rather wild and
neglected; below there were the traces of a great, derelict garden,
with thick clumps of box, the whole surrounded by a large earthwork,
covered with elms. To the left lay another pool; to the right, at the
end of the terrace, stood a small red-brick chapel, with a big
Perpendicular window. The house was to the left of us, in the centre of
the terrace, of old red brick, with tall chimneys and mullioned
windows. My friend the farmer chatted pleasantly about the house, but
was evidently prouder of his rose-trees and his chrysanthemums.