illside in the evening, but if
your favourite child lies ill at home, or your lover comes tomorrow, or
at your heart there lies a scheme for the holding of wealth, then you
will return as you went out; you will have seen nothing. For Nature,
ever, like the Old Hebrew God, cries out, "Thou shalt have no other gods
before me." Only then, when there comes a pause, a blank in your life,
when the old idol is broken, when the old hope is dead, when the old
desire is crushed, then the Divine compensation of Nature is made
manifest. She shows herself to you. So near she draws you, that the
blood seems to flow from her to you, through a still uncut cord: you
feel the throb of her life.

When that day comes, that you sit down broken, without one human
creature to whom you cling, with your loves the dead and the
living-dead; when the very thirst for knowledge through long-continued
thwarting has grown dull; when in the present there is no craving, and
in the future no hope, then, oh, with a beneficent tenderness, Nature
infolds you.

Then the large white snow-flakes as they flutter down, softly, one by
one, whisper soothingly, "Rest, poor heart, rest!" It is as though our
mother smoothed our hair, and we are comforted.

And yellow-legged bees as they hum make a dreamy lyric; and the light on
the brown stone wall is a great work of art; and the glitter through the
leaves makes the pulses beat.

Well to die then; for, if you live, so surely as the years come, so
surely as the spring succeeds the winter, so surely will passions arise.
They will creep back, one by one, into the bosom that has cast them
forth, and fasten there again, and peace will go. Desire, ambition,
and the fierce agonizing flood of love for the living they will spring
again. Then Nature will draw down her veil; with all your longing you
shall not be able to raise one corner; you cannot bring back those
peaceful days. Well to die then!

Sitting there with his arms folded on his knees, and his hat slouched
down over his face, Waldo looked out into the yellow sunshine that
tinted even the very air with the colour of ripe corn, and was happy.

He was an uncouth creature with small learning, and no prospect in the
future but that of making endless tables and stone walls, yet it seemed
to him as he sat there that life was a rare and very rich thing. He
rubbed his hands in the sunshine. Ah, to live on so, year after year,
how well! Always in the present; letting e