its of all four of
la Garda grew haughty and forgot their humble bodies, and would fain
have gone forth to dwell with the sons of light, while their bodies lay
on the moss and the sun grew warmer and warmer, shining dappled in
amongst the small green leaves. All seemed still but for the winged
insects flashing through shafts of the sunlight out of the gloom of the
trees and disappearing again like infinitesimal meteors. But our
concern is with the thoughts of man, of which deeds are but the
shadows: wherever these are active it is wrong to say all is still; for
whether they cast their shadows, which are actions, or whether they
remain a force not visibly stirring matter, they are the source of the
tales we write and the lives we lead; it is they that gave History her
material and they that bade her work it up into books.

And thoughts were very active about that oak-tree. For while the
thoughts of la Garda arose like dawn, and disappeared into mists, their
prisoner was silently living through the sunny days of his life, which
are at no time quite lost to us, and which flash vivid and bright and
near when memory touches them, herself awakened by the nearness of
death. He lived again days far from the day that had brought him where
he stood. He drew from those days (that is to say) that delight, that
essence of hours, that something which we call life. The sun, the wind,
the rough sand, the splash of the sea, on the star-fish, and all the
things that it feels during its span, are stored in something like its
memory, and are what we call its life: it is the same with all of us.
Life is feeling. The prisoner from the store of his memory was taking
all he had. His head was lifted, he was gazing northwards, far further
than his eyes could see, to shining spaces in great woods; and there
his threatened being walked in youth, with steps such as spirits take,
over immortal flowers, which were dim and faint but unfading because
they lived on in memory. In memory he walked with some who were now far
from his footsteps. And, seen through the gloaming of that perilous
day, how bright did those far days appear! Did they not seem sunnier
than they really were? No, reader; for all the radiance that glittered
so late in his mind was drawn from those very days; it was their own
brightness that was shining now: we are not done with the days that
were as soon as their sunsets have faded, but a light remains from them
and grows fairer and f