nd hawthorn hedges, and again surrender my soul, while walking, to
tender and vague reveries, in which all definite thoughts swim
overpowered, yet happy, in a sea of voluptuous emotions inspired by
clouds lost in the blue sea of heaven and valleys visioned away into the
purple sky. What opium is to one, what hasheesh may be to another, what
_kheyf_ or mere repose concentrated into actuality is to the Arab, that
is Nature to him who has followed her for long years through poets and
mystics and in works of art, until at last he pierces through dreams and
pictures to reality.

The ruins of Netley Abbey, nine or ten miles from Oatlands Park, are
picturesque and lonely, and well fitted for the dream-artist in shadows
among sunshine. The priory was called Newstead or De Novo Loco in Norman
times, when it was founded by Ruald de Calva, in the day of Richard Coeur
de Lion. The ruins rise gray, white, and undressed with ivy, that they
may contrast the more vividly with the deep emerald of the meadows
around. "The surrounding scenery is composed of rivers and
rivulets,"--for seven streams run by it, according to Aubrey,--"of
foot-bridge and fords, plashy pools and fringed, tangled hollows, trees
in groups or alone, and cattle dotted over the pastures:" an English Cuyp
from many points of view, beautiful and English-home-like from all. Very
near it is the quaint, out-of-the-way, darling little old church of
Pirford, up a hill, nestling among trees, a half-Norman, decorated
beauty, out of the age, but altogether in the heart. As I came near, of
a summer afternoon, the waving of leaves and the buzzing of bees without,
and the hum of the voices of children at school within the adjoining
building, the cool shade and the beautiful view of the ruined Abbey
beyond, made an impression which I can never forget. Among such scenes
one learns why the English love so heartily their rural life, and why
every object peculiar to it has brought forth a picture or a poem. I can
imagine how many a man, who has never known what poetry was at home, has
wept with yearning inexpressible, when sitting among burning sands and
under the palms of the East, for such scenes as these.

But Netley Abbey is close by the river Wey, and the sight of that river
and the thought of the story of the monks of the olden time who dwelt in
the Abbey drive away sentiment as suddenly as a north wind scatters
sea-fogs. For the legend is a merry one, and the reader m