r, or know,
the potent word which will put a stop to his floodings; that, indeed,
seems reserved to the master wizard; while the tiros of life's magic,
puffed up with half-science, do not drink, but drown. In this way
bicycling has added, methinks, an item to the hurry and breathlessness
of existence, and to the difficulty of enjoying the passing hour--nay,
the passing landscape. I have only once travelled on a bicycle, and,
despite pleasant incidents and excellent company, I think it was a
mistake; there was an inn to reach, a train to catch, a meal to secure,
darkness to race against. And an order was issued, "Always make as much
pace as you can at the beginning, because there may be some loss of time
later on," which was insult and ingratitude to those mountain sides and
valleys of Subiaco and Tivoli, and to the ghosts of St. Benedict, of
Nero, and of the delightful beribboned Sibyl, who beckoned us to rest in
their company.

How different from this when one fares forth, companioned by one of the
same mind; or, better still, with one's own honourable self, exploring
the unknown, revisiting the already loved, with some sort of
resting-place to return to, and the knowledge of time pleasantly
effaced! One speeds along the straight road, flying into the beckoning
horizon, conscious only of mountain lines or stacked cloud masses;
living, for the instant, in air, space become fluid and breathable,
earth a mere detail; and then, at the turn, slackening earth's power
asserting itself with the road's windings. Curiosity keenly on edge, or
memory awakened; and the past also casting its spells, with the isolated
farms or the paved French villages by the river-bank, or the church
spire, the towers, in the distance.... A wrong turn is no hardship; it
merely gives additional knowledge of the country, a further detail of
the characteristic lie of the land, a different view of some hill or
some group of buildings. Indeed, I often deliberately deflect, try road
and lane merely to return again, and have bicycled sometimes half an
hour round a church to watch its transepts and choir fold and unfold,
its towers change place, and its outline of high roof and gargoyles
alter on the landscape. Then the joy, spiced with the sense of
reluctance, of returning on one's steps, sometimes on the same day, or
on successive days, to see the same house, to linger under the same
poplars by the river. Those poplars I am thinking of are alongside a
st