in forest of arden

8/10/2019 in forest of arden

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Presented to the

LIBRARY of the

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

by

MR. & MRS. C.S. MARTIN


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Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2010 with funding from

University of Toronto

http://www.archive.org/details/inforestofardenOOmabi


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The University Press, Cambridge, U.S.A.


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. In the Forest of Arden

Gowith

me: if you like^ upon report,

The soil, the profit, and this kind of life,I will your very faithful factor be.

And buy it with your gold right suddenly

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Rosalind had just laid a spray ofapple blossoms on the study table.

^^Well/^ I said, ^^when shall westart ?

''

** To-morrow/^Rosalind has a habit of swift deci-

sion when she has settled a questionin her own mind, and I was not sur-prised when she replied with a single

decisive word. But she also has ahabit of making thorough preparationfor any undertaking, and now she wasquietly proposing to go off for thesummer the very next day, and not atrunk was packed, not a seat securedin any train, not a movement made

toward any winding up of householdaffairs. I had great faith in her abilityto execute her plans with celerity,

but. I doubted whether she could beready to turn the key in the door, bidfarewell to the milkman and thebutcher, and start the very next day

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V^ for the Forest of Arden. For several

% past seasons we had planned this boldS'^^ t| excursion into a country which few

]' persons have seemed to know muchi about since the day when a poet of

'i great fame, familiar with many strange) climes and peoples, found his way\ thither and shared the golden fortune of

1 his journey with all the world. Winter\ after winter, before the study fire, we

^ had made merry plans for this trip1 into the magical forest; we had dis-

J^ cussed the best methods of travelling t^^ where no roads led; we had enjoyed ''^

in anticipation the surmises of our

sf neighbours concerning our unexplained

absence, and the delightful mystery

which would always linger about us

J when we had returned, with memories> of a landscape which no eyes but ours

< had seen these many years, and ofrare and original people whose voices

had been silent in common speech so

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many generations that only a fewdreamers like ourselves even remem-

bered that they had ever spoken. Wehad looked along the library shelvesfor the books we should take with us,until we remembered that in that coun-try there were books in the runningstreams. Rosalind had gone so far asto lay aside a certain volume of ser-

mons whoseaspiring

note had morethan once made music of the momen-tary discords of her life ; but I reminded

her that such a work would be strangelyout of place in a forest where there weresermons in stones. Finally we had de-cided to leave books behind and go free-

mindedas well as free-hearted. It

hadbeen a serious question how much andwhat apparel we should take with us,and that point was still unsettled whenthe apple trees came to their blossom-ing. It is a theory of mine that thechief delight of a vacation from one^s

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usual occupations is freedom from

the tyranny of plans and dates, andthus much Rosalind had conceded tome.

There had been an irresistible charmin the very secrecy which protected ouradventure from the curious and unsym-pathetic comment of the world. Wefound endless pleasure in imagining

what this and that good neighbour ofours would say about the folly of leav-ing a comfortable house, good beds, anda well-stocked larder for the hard fare

and uncertain shelter of a strange forest.** For my part/^ we gleefully heard Mrs.Grundy declare, ** for my part, I can-not understand why two people oldenough to know better should maketramps of themselves and go ramblingabout a piece of woods that nobodyever heard of, in the heat of the mid-

summer.^^ Poor Mrs. Grundy Wecould well afford to laugh merrily at

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her scornful expostulations ; for while

she was repeating platitudes to over-dressed and uninteresting people at Old-

port^ we should be making sunny playof life with men and women whosethoughts were free as the wind, and

whose hearts were fresh as the dewand the stars. And often when our talkhad died into silence, and the wind with-out whistled to the fire within, we hadfallen to dreaming of those shadowyaisles arched by the mighty trees, and

of the splendid pageant that should

make life seem as great and rich asNature herself. I confess that all mydreams came to one ending; that Ishould suddenly awake in some goldenhour and really know Rosalind. Ofcourse I had been coming, through all

these years, to know something aboutRosalind; but in this busy world, with

work to be done, and bills to be paid,and people to be seen, and journeys to


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r^^v ^ \ J be made^ and friction and worry and'^'^#4^ 4 fatigue to be borne, how can we really

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come to know one another ? We maymeet the vicissitudes and changes sideby side ; we may work together in thelong days of toil ; our hearts may repose

^ on a common trust, our thoughts travel7) a common road ; but how rarely do we, come to the hour when the pressure of

I toil is removed, the clouds of anxietymelt into blue sky,

and in the whole j^world nothing remains but the sun onthe flower, and the song in the trees,and the unclouded light of love in the ^':^^'veyes? Ef^.^

I dreamed, too, that in finding Rosa- pf^lind I should also find myself. There Mt^^^i^ff'were times when I had seemed on the

%S^^^^very point of making this discovery, f * ''' ^^'but something had always turned me =aside when the quest was most eagerand promising; the world pressed intothe seclusion for which I had struggled,

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and when I waited to hear its faintestmurmur die in the distance, suddenly thetumult had risen again, and the dream

of self-communion and self-knowledge

had vanished. To get out of the uproarand confusion of things, I had often fan-

cied, would be like exchanging the dusty

mid-summer road for the shade of the

woods where the brook calms the day

with its pellucid note of effortless flow,

and the hours hide themselves from

the glances of the sun. In the Forest of

Arden I felt sure I should find the repose,

the quietude, the freedom of thought,

which would permit me to know my-self. There, too, I suspected Nature

had certain surprises for me; certainsecrets which she has been holding

back for the fortunate hour when herspell would be supreme and unbroken.

I even hoped that I might come una-

] ware upon that ancient and perennial^1 movement of life upon which I seemed

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always to happen the very second afterit had been suspended; that I might

#ii*' * Pl i hear the note of the hermit thrush

..P^ji^w^^&f ^^^^ ^^ * ^ *^^ heartof

the forest;^fiwiilthe soulful melody of the nightingale,

' pathetic with unappeasable sorrow. Inthe Forest of Arden, too, there wereunspoiled men and women, as indiffer-ent to the fashion of the world andthe folly of the hour as the stars to theimpalpable mist of the clouds;

menand

women who spoke the truth, and sawthe fact, and lived the right; to whomlove and faith and high hopes were

v-8F|| more real than the crowns of whichKny I they had been despoiled, and the king-

doms from which they had been re-jected. All this I had dreamed, and Iknow not how many other brave andbeautiful dreams, and I was dreamingthem again when Rosalind laid theapple blossoms on the study table, andanswered, decisively, ** To-morrow.^*

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To-morrow/^ I repeated, ** to-mor-row. But how are you going toget ready ? If you sit up all night youcannot get through with the packing.

You said only yesterday that yoursummer dressmaking was shame-fully behind. My dear, next weekis the earliest possible time for our

going.''

Rosalind laughed archly, and pushedthe apple blossoms over the wofully

interlined manuscript of my new articleon Egypt. There was in her veryattitude a hint of unsuspected buoyancyand strength; there was in her eyesa light which I have never seen underour uncertain skies. The breath of theapple blossoms filled the room, and abobolink, poised on a branch outsidethe window, suddenly poured a rap-turous song into the silence of thesweet spring day. I laid down mypen, pushed my scattered sheets into

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|1[1^^ ^^(^, the portfolio, covered the inkstand, and ^^&i'Q' ^li5lC :^ laid my hand in hers. '' Not to-mor- r#^^P^ ' J'^fij row/' I said, ''not to-morrow. Let us G C^^^P :'^. ;.y. - .y go now/' J - '%

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Now go we in content

To liberty and not to banishment


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I have sometimes entertained myself

by trying to imagine the impressions

which our modernlife

would makeupon some sensitive mind of a remoteage. I have fancied myself rambling

about New York with Montaigne^and taking note of his shrewd, satirical

comment. I can hardly imagine himexpressing any feeling of surprise, much

less any sentimentof admiration; but

I am confident that under a masque ofironical self-complacency the old Gascon

would find it difficult to repress his

astonishment, and still more difficult to^ ^ adjust his mind to evident and impres-

sive changes. I have ventured at times

to imaginemyself in the company of

another more remote and finely organ-ised spirit of the past, and pictured to

myself the keen, dispassionate criticism of

Pericles on the things of modern habitand creation; I have listened to his

luminous interpretations of the changed

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conditions which he saw about him; I bi'>v *;,f ^ ' :'.''; have noted his unconcern toward the sPlfekîS

merely material advances of society, hisj^J ^'> ÎJ^

m^'^wm^^'S'^k P^^^t^^tive insight into its intellectual

i^J^^^^SMih and moral developments, A mind socapacious and open, a nature so trained Iand poised, could not be otherwise

|

than self-contained and calm even in '

the presence of changes so vast andmanifold as those which have trans-

\

formed society since the daysof

thegreat Athenian; but even he could not

i

be quite unmoved if brought face to

'

face with a life so unlike that with

which he had been familiar; there^ must come, even to one who feels

the mastery of the soul over all con-

ditions, a certain sense of wonder andawe.

It was with some such feeling thatRosalind and I found ourselves in the

IForest of Arden. The journey was so

\ soon accomplished that we had no time

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to accustom ourselves to the changes MLbetween the country we had left and ^'' ' '

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that to whichwe

had come.We hadalways fancied that the road would be

long and hard, and that we shouldarrive worn and spent with the fatigues

|||of travel. We were astonished and de- 'lighted when we suddenly discoveredthat we were within the boundaries ofthe Forest long before

wehad

begunto think of the end of our journey. Wehad said nothing to each other by theway; our thoughts were so busy thatwe had no time for speech. There wereno other travellers; everybody seemedto be going in the opposite direction;and we were left to undisturbed medi-tation. The route to the Forest is oneof those open secrets which whosoeverwould know must learn for himself; itis impossible to direct those who do notdiscover for themselves how to makethe journey. The Forest is probably

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the most accessible place on the faceof the earthy but it is so rarely visited

that one may go half a lifetime withoutmeeting a person who has been there.I have never been able to explain thefact that those who have spent sometime in the Forest, as well as those

who are later to see it, seem to recog-nise each other by instinct. Rosalindand I happen to have a large circle of

acquaintances, and it has been our goodfortune to meet and recognise many whowere familiar with the Forest, and whowere able to tell us much about itslocalities and charms. It is not gener-ally known, and it is probably wisenot to emphasise the fact, that the for-

tunate few who have access to theForest form a kind of secret fraternity;a brotherhood of the soul which is secretbecause those alone who are qualified formembership by nature can understandeither its language or its aims. It is a

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very strange thing that the dwellers inthe Forest never make the least attempt

at concealment, but that, no matter howfrank and explicit their statements may-be, nobody outside the brotherhood everunderstands where the Forest lies, orwhat one finds when he gets there.One may write what he chooses aboutlife in the Forest, and only those whomNature has selected and trained willunderstand what he discloses; to allothers it will be an idle tale or a fairystory for the entertainment of peo-

ple who have no serious business inhand.

I remember well the first time I ever^ understood that there is a Forest of

Arden, and that they who choose maywander through its arched aisles ofshade and live at their will in its deepand beautiful solitude; a solitude inwhich nature sits like a friend fromwhose face the veil has been with-

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drawn^ and whose strange and foreignutterance has been exchanged for themost familiar speech. Since that memo-rable afternoon under the apple trees Ihave never been far from the Forest,although at times I have lost sight ofthe line which its foliage makes againstthe horizon. I have always intendedto cross that line some day, and to ex-plore the Forest ; perhaps even to makea home for myself there. But one^sdreams must often wait for their reali-sation, and so it has come to pass thatI have gone all these years withoutpersonal familiarity with these beautifulscenes. I have since learned that onenever comes to the Forest until he is

thoroughly prepared in heart and mind,and I understand now that I could nothave come earlier even if I had madethe attempt. As it happened, I con-cerned myself with other things, andnever approached very near the Forest,

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although never very far from it. I wasnever quite happy unless I caught fre-

quent glimpses of its distant boughs^and I searched more and more eagerlyfor those who had left some record oftheir journeys to the Forest^ and oftheir life within its magical boundaries.

I discovered, to my great joy, that thelibraries were full of books which had

much to say about the delights ofArden: its enchanting scenery; themusic of its brooks; the sweet andrefreshing repose of its recesses; the

noble company that frequent it. I soonfound that all the greater poets havebeen there, and that their lines had

caught the magical radiance of the sky;and many of the prose writers showedthe same familiarity with a country inwhich they evidently found whateverwas sweetest and best in life. I cameto know at last those whose knowledgeof Arden was most complete, and I put

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and I ceased to talk about it save tothose who shared my faith. GraduallyI came to number among my friendsmany who were in the habit of makingfrequent journeys to the Forest, andnot a few who had spent the greaterpart of their lives there. I rememberthe first time I saw Rosalind I sawthe light of the Arden sky in her

eyes, the buoyancy of the Arden airin her step, the purity and freedom ofthe Arden life in her nature. We builtour home within sight of the Forest,and there was never a day that wedid not talk about and plan our long-delayed journey thither.

After all,^* said Rosalind, on thatfirst glorious morning in Arden, as Ilook back I see that we were alwayson the way here.


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Well, this is the Forest of Arden


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outlaws ; those who have committed [^some grave offence against the worldof conventions, or who have voluntarilygone into exile out of sheer liking for afreer life. These persons are not vulgarlaw-breakers; they have neither blood

\ on their hands nor ill-gotten gains in* their pockets ; they are, on the contrary,

people of uncommonly honest bearingand frank speech. Their offences evi-dently impose small burden on theirconscience, and they have the air ofthose who have never known what it

' is to have the Furies on one^s track.' Rosalind was struck with the charming

naturalness and gaiety of every one

,

we met in our first ramble on thatdelicious and never-to-be-forgotten morn-

ing when we arrived in Arden. Therewas neither assumption nor diffidence;

' there was rather an entire absence ofany kind of self-consciousness. Rosa-lind had fancied that we might be quite

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alone for a time, and wc had expectedto have a few days to ourselves. Wehad even planned in our romantic mo-ments and there is always a gooddeal of romance among the dwellers inArden a continuation of our weddingjourney during the first week,

^*It will be so much more delightfulthan before/^ suggested Rosalind, ^^ be-

cause nobody will stare at us, and weshall have the whole world to our-selves/^ In that last phrase I recog-

nised the ideal wedding journey, andwas not at all dismayed at the prospectof having no society but Rosalindas fora time. But all such anticipations were f

dispelled in an hour. It was not that*

we met many people, it is one of the 'delights of the Forest that one finds

society enough to take away the senseof isolation, but not enough to destroythe sweetness of solitude ; it was ratherthat the few we met made us feel at

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once that we had equal claim withthemselves on the hospitality of theplace. The Forest was not only free

to every comer, but it evidently gavepeculiar pleasure to those who wereliving in it to convey a sense of owner-

ship to those who were arriving for'

the first time, Rosalind declared that

she felt as much at home as if shehad been bom there; and she added

that she was glad she had broughtonly the dress she wore. I was alittle puzzled by the last remark; it

seemed not entirely logical. But I

saw presently that she was expressingthe fellowship of the place, which for-

^bade that one should possess anything ;

that was notin use,

andthat, there-

fore, was not adding constantly to thecommon stock of pleasure. Concerningthe feeling of having been born in

Arden, I became convinced later that

there was good reason for believing30

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that everybody who loved the placehad been born there, and that this fact

explained the home feeling which cameto one the instant he set foot withinthe Forest. It is, in fact, the only place |i|^i|f|I have known which seemed to belong hUS^'to me and to everybody else at thesame time; in which I felt no alieninfluence. In our own home I had

something of the same feeling, butwhen I looked from a window or setfoot from a door I was instantly op-pressed with a sense of foreign owner-ship. In the great world how littlecould I call my own Only a fewfeet of soil out of the measureless land-

scape; only a few trees and flowersout of all that boundless foliage Iseemed driven out of the heritage towhich I was born; cheated out of mybirthright in the beauty of the field and

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the mystery of the Forest ; put off withthe beggarly portion of a younger son

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''' when I ought to have fallen heir tothe kingdom. My chief joy was that

jfrom the little space I called my own

;i I could see the whole heavens ; nosS^:Miiiiiiili i man could rob me of that splendid

vision.

In Arden, however, the question of

ownership never comes into one^s

thoughts; that the Forest belongs to

you gives you a deep joy, but there

is a deeper joy in the consciousnessthat it belongs to everybody else.

The sense of freedom, which comesas strongly to one in Arden as thesmell of the sea to one who has madea long journey from the inland, hints,

I suppose, at the offence which makesthe dwellers within its boundaries out-

laws. For one reason or another, they

have all revolted against the rule of

the world, and the world has cast

them out. They have offended smugrespectability, with its passionless de-

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vf votion to deportment ; they have out-' raged conventional usage, that carefully

^devised system by which small

naturesI

attempt to bring great ones down totheir own dimensions; they have scan- .dalised the orthodoxy which, like Mem- 'non, has lost the music of its morning,and marvels that the world no longer '

;^listens ; they have derided venerable

' prejudices, those ugly relics bywhichsome men keep in remembrance their

barbarous ancestry; they have refusedto follow flags whose battles were wonor lost ages ago; they have scorned tocompromise with untruth, to go withthe crowd, to acquiesce in evil ** for thegood of the cause,^^ to speak when theyought to keep silent, and to keep silentwhen they ought to speak. Truly thelists of sins charged to the account ofArden is a long one, and were it notthat the memory of the world, concernedchiefly with the things that make for

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its comfort, is a short one, it would goill with the lovers of the Forest* Morethan once it has happened that some

'

offender has suffered so long a banish-ment that he has taken permanentrefuge in Arden, and proved his citi-

zenship there by some act worthy ofits glorious privileges. In the Forest

one comes constantly upon traces ofthose who, like Dante and Milton, have

found there a refuge from the Philis-tinism of a world that often hates its

children in exact proportion to their

ability to give it light. For the mostpart, however, the outlaws who frequentthe Forest suffer no longer banishment

I than that which they impose on them-selves.

They come and goat their

own sweet will; and their coming, Isuspect, is generally a matter of their

own choosing. The world still lovesdarkness more than light ; but it rarelynowadays falls upon the lantern-bearer

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and beats the life out of him, as inthe good old times/^ The world has

grown more decent and polite, althoughstill at heart no doubt the bad old worldwhich stoned the prophets. It sneerswhere it once stoned; it rejects andscorns where it once beat and burned.And so Arden has become a refuge,not so much from persecution and

hatred as from ignorance, indifference,and the small wounds of small mindsbent upon stinging that which theycannot destroy.


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IV

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. . Fleet the time carelessly, as they did in the

golden world


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Rosalind and I have always been

planning to do a great many pleasant

things when we had more time. Dur-ing the busy days when we barelyfound opportunity to speak to each

other we were always thinking of thebetter days when we should be able tosit hours together with no knock at the

door and no imperative summons from

the kitchen. Some man of sufficienteminence to give his words currencyought to define life as a series of inter-

ruptions. There are a good manyvaluable and inspiring things whichcan only be done when one is in themoodt and to secure a mood is not

always an easy matter; there aremoods which are as coy as the mosthigh-spirited woman^ and must bewooed with as much patience andtact: and when the illusive prize isgained, one holds it by the frailest ten-ure. An interruption diverts the cur-

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about life in Arden is the absence of

any sense of haste; life is a matter of>

being rather than of doing, andonei

shares the tranquillity of the great trees \

that silently expand year by year. The ;|fever and restlessness are gone, thei,

long strain of nerve and will relaxed; ;

a delicious feeling of having strength;

and time enough to live one^s life and

do one's work fills one with a deepand

^

enduring sense of repose. ;

Rosalind, who had been busy about iso many things that I sometimes almostlost sight of her for days together, found

time to take long walks with me, to

watch the birds and the clouds, and'

talk by the hour about all mannerof

pleasant trifles. I came to feel, after a

time, that just what I anticipated would

happen in Arden had happened. I was

fast becoming acquainted with her. Wespent days together in the most delight-

ful half-vocal and half-silent fellowship


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^^friends on their best side; our visionof their noblest selves is constantly-

obscured by the mists of preoccupationand weariness.

In Arden, life is pitched on the naturalkey; nobody is ever hurried; nobodyis ever interrupted; nobody carries hiswork like a pack on his back insteadof leaving it behind him as the sunleaves the earth when the day is overand the calm stars shine in the un-broken silence of the sky. Rosalindand I were entirely conscious of thetransformation going on within us^ andwere not slow to submit ourselves toits beneficent influence. We felt thatArden would not put all its resourcesinto our hand until we had shakenoff the dust and parted from the fretof the world we had left behind.

In those first inspiring days we wentoftenest to the heart of the pines, wherethe moss grew so deep that our move-

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ments were noiseless ; where the light fell

in subdued and gentle tones among theclosely clustered trees; and where no

sound ever reached us save the organmusic of the great boughs when the

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wind evoked their sublime harmonies. ''

Many a time, as we have sat silentwhile the tones of that majestic sym-phony rose and fell about us, we seemedto become a part of the scene itself; we*^'

felt the unfathomed depth of a musicproduced by no conscious thought,wrought out by no conscious toil, butakin, in its spontaneity and natural-ness, with the fragrance of the flower.And with these thrilling notes th^e ^came to us the thought of the calm, ^'reposeful, irresistible

growth of Nature; '/' \snever hasting, never at rest ; the silent [> ^' ^

spreading of the tree, the steady burn-ing of the star, the noiseless flow of theriver Was not this sublime uncon-sciousness of time, this glorious appro-

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And this our life^ exempt from public haunt,Finds tongues in trees^ books in the running brooks.

Sermons in stones, and good in everything


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r i It was one of those entrancing morn-

*%m ^^^ -^^^n the earth seems to have S'ilt^ 4|^,'Si

^ been made over under cover of nij^ht,IW^^^^^^^^^^^^

'

';,^,V and one drinks the first draft of a new ^ ' '* ^'^^

experience when he sees it by the lightof a new day. Such mornings are notuncommon in Arden, where the nightly f 1dews work a perpetual miracle of fresh-ness. On this particular morning we

had strayed long and far, the silenceand solitude of the woods luring ushour after hour with unspoken promises

to the imagination. We had come atlength to a place so secluded, so re-

mote from stir and sound, that one

might dream there of the sacredness of

ancient oracles and the revels of ancientgods.

Rosalind had gathered wild flowers

along the way, and sat at the base of

a great tree intently disentangling her

treasures. With that figure before me,I thought of nearer and more sacred

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C^i

things than the old woodland gods thatmight have strayed that way centuriesago; I had no need to recall the van-

ished times and faiths to interpret thespirit of an hour so far from the com-monplaces of human speech, so freefrom the passing moods of human life.The sweet unconsciousness of that face,bent over the mass of wild flowers, andakin to them in its unspoiled loveliness,

was to that hour and place like theilluminated capital in the old missal; aray of colour which unlocked the darkmystery of the text. When one cansee the loveliness of a wild flower,

and feel the absorbing charm of itssentiment, one is not far from the

kingdom of Nature.As these fancies chased one anotheracross my mind, lying there at fulllength on the moss, I, too, seemed tolose all consciousness that I had evertouched life at any point than this, or


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w

^iyi

1'

Clouds and trees, dim vistas of shadowand flower-starred space of sunlight,

were no longer alien to me; I was

akin with the vast and silent movementof things which encompassed me. Nonew sound came to me, no new sightbroke on my vision; but I heard withears, and I saw with eyes, to which allother sounds and sights had ceased to

be. I cannot translate into words the

mysteryand the thrill of that hour

when, for the first time, I gave myself

wholly into the keeping of Nature, and

she received me as her child. What 1felt, what I saw and heard, belong onlyto that place; outside the Forest of

Arden they are incomprehensible. It is

enough to say that I had parted with

all my limitations, and freed myself fromall my bonds of habit and ignoranceand prejudice; I was no longer wornand spent with work and emotion andimpression; I was no longer prisoned

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within the iron bars of my own person-> ;, ffi ality. I was as free as the bird ; I was^

Jaslittle

boundto the past as the cloud ]ft

^JJthat an hour ago was breathed out ofthe heart of the sea; I was as joyous,as unconscious, as wholly given to the

rapture of the hour as if I had comeinto a world where freedom and joy

^:^ were an inalienable and universal pos-'^

session. I did not speculate about the

great fleecy clouds that moved like; galleons in the ethereal sea above me;: I simply felt their celestial beauty, the

; radiancy of their unchecked movement,' the freedom and splendour of the inex-

1 haustible play of life of which they were^ ^ part. I asked no questions of myself

about the great trees that wove thegarments of the magical forest about

me; I felt the stir of their ancient life,rooted in the centuries that had left norecord in that place save the added girth

and the discarded leaf ; I had no thought53


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-^M^Ii>

i^-:^c

about the bird whose note thrilled the

forest save the rapture of pouring out

without measure or thought the joy-

that was in me; I felt the vast irresis-tible movement of life rollings waveafter wave, out of the unseen seas be-

yond, obliterating the faint divisions bywhich, in this working world, we countthe days of our toil, and making all the

ages one unbroken growth; I felt the

measureless calm, the sublime repose, ofthat uninterrupted expansion of form

and beauty, from flower to star and

from bird to cloud; I felt the mighty

impulse of that force which lights the

sun in its track and sets the stars

to mark the boundaries of its way.

Unbroken repose, unlimited growth,inexhaustible life, measureless force, un-

searchable beauty who shall feel thesethings and not know that there are nowords for them And yet in Ardenthey are part of every man^s life

f '. (:'

i':^A' 'iM

54


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t

ltS j ^ iss^m^

And all the time Rosalind sat weav-ing her wild flowers into a loose wreath,

''I must not take them from thisplace/^ she said, as she bound them

about the venerable tree, as one would

bind the fancy of the hour to some

eternal truth.^^ Yesterday/^ she added, as she sat

down again and shook the stray leaves

and petals from her lap ^'

yesterdaywas the first day of my life : to-day isthe second/^

It is one of the delights of Arden

that one does not need to put his whole

,^ thought into words there ; half the needof language vanishes when we say only

what we mean, and what we sayis

heard with sympathy and intelligence.

Rosalind and I were thinking the samethought. Yesterday we had discoveredthat an open mind, freedom from workand care and turmoil, make it possiblefor people to be their true selves and tc

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.rîililMISiflti

know each other. To-day we haddiscovered that nature reveals herself

only to the open mind and heart; to

all others she is deaf and dumb. Theworldling who seeks her never sees somuch as the hem of her garment; theegotist^ the self-engrossed man, searchesin vain for her counsel and consolationthe over-anxious, fretful soul finds her

indifferent and incommunicable. Wemay seek her far and wide, with mindsintent upon other things, and she willforever elude us; but on the morning

we open our windows with a free mind,she is there to break for us the seal of

her treasures, and to pour out the per-

fume of her flowers. She is cold, re-

mote, inaccessible only so long as weclose the doors of our hearts and minds

to her. With the drudges and slavesof mere getting and saving she has

nothing in common; but with thosewho hold their souls above the price

.I^M;; ^

fcxi'tliiiiti'iiliiliitran: .MmmmmîMiimmmmmmmmmmî^^


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,M^m

VI

Here feel we but the penalty of Adam,The season^s difference, as the icy fangAnd churlish chiding of the winter wind,Which, when it bites and blows upon

mybody,

Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say,This is no flattery : these are counsellors

That feelingly persuade me what I am


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irm

immmmmmmriMmAmi

If the ideal conditions of life, of whichmost of us dream, could be realised, theresult would be a padded and luxuriousexistence, well-housed, well-fed, well-

dressed, with all the winds of heaventempered to indolence and cowardice.We are saved from absolute shame bythe consciousness that if such a lifewere possible we should speedily revoltagainst the comforts that flattered the

body while they ignored the soul. InArden there is no such compromisewith our immoral desires to get resultswithout work, to buy without payingfor what we receive. Nature keepsno running accounts and suffers noman to get in her debt ; she deals withus on the principles of immutable right-eousness; she treats us as her equals,and demands from us an equivalent forevery gift or grace of sight or soundshe bestows. She rejects contemptu-ously the advances of the weaklings


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to Arden ; in fact, we still have a greatdeal to learn about this wonderful coun-try, in which so many of the ideals

andstandards with which we were oncefamiliar are reversed. It is one of theblessed results of living in the Forestthat one is more and more consciousthat he does not know, and more andmore eager to learn. There are noshams of any sort in Arden,

andall

pride in concealing one^s ignorance dis-appears; one^s chief concern is to beknown precisely as he is. We were alittle sensitive at first, a little disposedto be cautious about asking questionsthat might reveal our ignorance; butwe speedily lost the false shame

wehad brought with us from a world.,,,-^ where men study to conceal, as a means

;of protecting, the things that are mostprecious to them. When we learnedthat in the Forest nobody vulgarisesone^s affairs by making them matter


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of common talk^ that all the meannessesof slander and gossip and misinterpreta-

J,; :;

tion are unknown, and that charity, fl'??'

courtesy, and honour are the unfailinglaw of intercourse, we threw down ourreserves and experienced the refreshingfreedom and sympathy of full knowledgebetween man and man.

After a long succession of golden days

we awoke one morning to the familiar^

sound of rain on the roof; there wasno mistake about it; it was raining inArden Rosalind was so incredulousthat I could see she doubted if she

were awake; and when she had satis- U^^fied herself of that fact she began to U?i|'#'f'r**' '''^

ask herself whether we had been really V '^ '

in the Forest at all; whether we hadnot been dreaming in a kind of doubleconsciousness, and had now come tothe awakening which should rob us of

this golden memory. At last we recog-nised the fact that we were still in


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SjIPP^Ilu/u' -n

Aj-den, and that it was raining. It

was a melancholy awakening, and we

weresilent and depressed at breakfast;

for the first time no birds sang, and

no sunlight flickered through the leaves

and brought the day smiling to our

very door. The rain fell steadily, andwhen the wind swept through the treesa sound like a sob went up from the

Forest. After breakfast, for lack of

active occupation, we lighted a fewsticks in the rough fireplace, and found

ourselves gradually drawn into the cir-

cle of cheer in the little room. Thegreat world of Nature was for a mo-ment out of doors, and there seemed

noincongruity in talking about our

own experiences; we recalled the daysin the world we had left behind; weremembered the faces of our neigh-

bours; we reminded each other of theincidents of our journey; we retold, inantiphonal fashion, the story of our


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that one must escape from them tounderstand how beautiful they are.

And then I*m not sure that evendark days and rain have not somethingwhich sunshine and clear skies couldnot give us/^ As usual, Rosalind hadspoken my thought before I had madeit quite clear to myself; I began tofeel the peculiar delight of our comfort

in the heart of that great forest whenthe storm was abroad. The monotoneof the rain became rhythmic with someancient, primeval melody, which thewoods sang before their solitude hadbeen invaded by the eager feet of menalways searching for something which

they do not possess. I felt the spell

I

of that mighty life which includes theHijf'^mi tempest and the tumult of winds and

'waves among the myriad voices withwhich it speaks its marvellous secret.Half the meaning would go out ofNature if no storms ever dimmed the

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mm

light of stars or vexed the calm of*

summer seas. It is the infinite variety ^of Nature which fits response to every fneed and mood, renews for ever the 1freshness of contact with her, and [holds us by a power of which we Inever weary because we never exhaust tits resources.

** After all, Rosalind/' I said, '' it wasnot the storms and the cold which made

our old life hard, and gave Nature anunfriendly aspect; it was the thingsin our human experience which gavetempest and winter a meaning not theirown. In a world in which all hearts beat

^

,

true, and all hands were helpful, therej

would be no real hardship in Nature.[

It is the loss, sorrow, weariness, anddisappointment of life which give darkdays their gloom, and cold its icy edge,and work its bitterness. The real sor-rows of life are not of Nature's mak-ing; if faithlessness and treachery and

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fsiir^r'*ir? ^:?R^^

|# h^^'

every sort of baseness were taken outof human lives, we should find only a

healthy and vigorous joy in such hard-ship as Nature imposes upon us. Uponmen of sound, sweet life, she lays onlysuch burdens as strength delights tocarry, because in so doing it increases

itself/^

^^That is true,^^ said Rosalind. ^^The

day is dark only when the mind isdark; all weathers are pleasant whenthe heart is at rest. There are rainydays in Arden, but no gloomy ones;there are probably cold days, but nonethat chill the soul.''

I do not know whether it was Rosa-

lind's smile or the sudden breaking ofthe sun through the clouds that madethe room brilliant; probably it wasboth. Rosalind opened the lattice, andI saw that the rain had ceased. Thedrops still hung on every leaf, but theclouds were breaking into great shining


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^l'^'^''.

w^> ,-

^SS^'^^Mli^Si^S^

-A^i,. .'.;iiSi3h*.'flB0iWill*Jll&'^

' masses, and the blue of the sky wasof unsearchable purity and depth. Thesun poured a flood of light into the

;; heart of the Forest, and suddenly everytiny drop, that a moment ago mighthave seemed a symbol of sorrow, held

the radiant sun on its little disk, andevery sphere shone as if a universe

of fairy creation had been suddenlybreathed into being. And the splendourtouched Rosalind also.

, ili>uiiili]j^iiiiii^^ iiiiiiiiiiiiJiiiiiiitiiiJiiciJiiiuiiiiiililOiiiiUwiiiidiiiiiiiiiui^^


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;-L

' ^'vni >^ tf ii

I

I

' --.-fn i-iiiHH i - iiiuy

:->

vn

. . Pray you, if you know.

Where in the purlieus of this forest stands

Asheep-cote fenced about with olive trees ?

* 4 * *

The rank of osiers by the murmuring streamLeft on your right hand, brings you to the place.

But at this hour the house doth keep itself


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F

tl

IMittiliiHi

Years ago, when we were planning 'to build a certain modest little house, '

Rosalind and I found endless delightj

in the pleasures of anticipation. By,day and by night our talk came backto the home we were to make for our-selves. We discussed plan after plan'and found none quite to our mind;we examined critically the houses wevisited; we pored over books; we laidthe experience of our friends under con-tribution; and when at last we hadagreed upon certain essentials, we calledan architect to our aid, and fondly im-agined that now the prelude of discus- mis^sion and delay was over, we should ffind unalloyed delight in seeing o^r|i^i/;rt/ Ji4imaginary home swiftly take form and Iff^ft^^/ S^^become a thing of reality. Alas for ourhopes I Expense followed fast upon ex-pense and delay upon delay. Therewere endless troubles with masons andcarpenters and plumbers; and when

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our dream was at last realised, thecharm of it had somehow vanished;so much anxiety, care, and vexationhad gone into the process of buildingthat the completed structure seemed tobe a monument of our toil rather thana refuge from the world.

After this sad experience, Rosalind ^

and I contented ourselves with build-ing castles in Spain; and so great hasbeen our devotion to this occupation

that we are already joint owners ofimmense possessions in that remote andbeautiful country. It is a singular cir- l,j^^

cumstance that the dwellers in Arden, \f^almost without exception, are holders

of estates in Spain. I have never seenany of these splendid properties; infact, Rosalind and I have never seenour own castles; but I have heardvery full and graphic descriptions ofthose distant seats. In imagination I

have often seen the great piles crown-

1m

i^M^.

74

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the laws of descent. There are homes

for privacy, for the sanctities of love

and friendship;but the wealth of life

is common to all Instead of eleganthouses, and a meagre, inferior public

life, as in the great cities of the world,

there are modest homes and a noble

common life. If the houses in our citieswere simple and homelike in their ap-

pointments, and all their treasures of

art and beauty were lodged in noble

structures, open to every citizen, the

world would know something of thehabits of those who find in Arden thatsatisfying thought of life which is de-

nied them among men, moderation,simplicity, frugality for our private and

personal wants ; splendid profusion, noble

lavishness, beautiful luxury for that com-

mon life which now languishes becauseso few recognise its needs. When willthe world learn the real lesson of civili-

sation, and, for the cheap and ignoble

1 \ '7


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aspect of modern cities, bring back thestateliness of Rome and the beauty ofthat wonderful city whose poetry and

art were but the voices of her commonlife?

The murmuring stream at our doorin Arden whispered to us by day andby night the sweet secret of the happi-ness in the Forest, where no man strivesto outshine his neighbour or to encumber

the free and joyous play of hislife

withthose luxuries which are only anothername for care. Our modest little homesheltered but did not enslave us ; it held

a door open for all the sweet ministries

of affection, but it was barred againstanxiety and care; birds sang at its

flower-embowered windows, and thefragrance of the beautiful days lingered

there, but no sound from the world of

those that strive and struggle ever en-tered. We were joyous as children ina home which protected our bodies,

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La*. . vk^s^Wm^ r,[^ with their changing life ; our own fel- '^

3 lowship of mind and heart made it

Jj unspeakably sacred. Love and loyalty^

1 within; noble friends at the hearthstone;' soft or shining heavens above ; mystery

of forest and music of stream withoutthis is home in Arden. |

'^ i . ^[^ f

'1

) 1

8o

If

-'-'n'v:-^:;^''^^'-'^ ^

:,dl^J,dll.llMl4..Jlll:UlllmWiliOIMUIl'l;lllllillii^lllllll]lluiHli illllll|fA^^ i iaiii;s;[iiii iii iiiiSiiiiii iiiiiiHiiiiii:y iiJiiiiiiuiiiiiii 'i iiiia^


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vin

. . books in the running brooks


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Wii

In the days before we went to Arden,Rosalind and I had often wondered

what books we should find there^ andwe had anticipated with the keenestcuriosity that in the mere presence or

absence of certain books we shoulddiscover at last the final principle of

criticism, the absolute standard of liter-

ary art. Many a time as we sat beforethe study fire and finished the reading

of some volume that had yielded us

unmixed delight, we had said to eachother that we should surely find it inArden, and read it again in an atmos-

phere in which the most delicate and

i beautiful meanings would become as'

clear as the exquisite tracery of frost

on the study windows. That we shouldfind all the classics there we had not the

f| least doubt ; who could imagine a com-' munity of intelligent persons without

Homer and Dante and Shakespeare andWordsworth How the volumes would

im


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51^);1i

be housed we did not try to divine ; but'^j,pjg^ that we should find them there we did ^ < r^^

not think of doubting. Our chief thought ' '

,

was of the principle of selection^ longsought after by lovers of books, butnever yet found, which we were certainwould be easily discovered when wecame to look along the shelves of thelibraries in Arden. With what delight

J we anticipated the long days when weshould read together again, and amid such novel surroundings, the books we iloved For, although our home con- itained few luxuries, it had fed the mindthere was not a great soul in literaturewhose name was not on the shelves ofour library, and the companionships ofthat room made our quiet home morerich in gracious and noble influencesthan many a palace.

And yet we had been in the Forestseveral months before we even thoughtof books; so absorbed were we in the

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noble life of the place, in the inspiring

society about us. There came a morn-

ing, however, when, as I looked out

into the shadows of the deep woods, I

recalled a wonderful line of Dante's that

must have come to the poet as he passed

1 through some silent and sombre wood-

Iland path. Suddenly I remembered that

months had passed since we had opened

a book ; we whose most inspiring hourshad once been those in which we readtogether from some familiar page. For

an instant I felt something akin to

remorse; it seemed as if I had been

disloyal to friends who had neverfailed me in any time of need. Butas I meditated on this strange forget-

fulness of mine, I saw that in Arden

books have no place and serve no

purpose. Why should one read a trans-lation when the original work lies open

and legible before him? Why shouldone watch the reflections in the shad-

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owy surface of the lake when theheavens shine above him ? Why shouldone linger before the picturesque land-

scape which art has imperfectly trans-ferred to canvas when the scene, withall its elusive play of light and shade,lies outspread before him ? I becameconscious that in Arden one liveshabitually in the world which booksare always striving to portray and in-terpret ; that one sees with his owneyes all that the eyes of the keenest

observer have ever seen; that onefeels in his own soul all the greatestsoul has ever felt. That which in theouter world most men know only byreport, in Arden each one knows forhimself. The stories of travellers ceaseto interest us when we are at last withinthe borders of the strange, far country.

Books are, at the best, faint andimperfect transcriptions of Nature andlife; when one comes to see Nature

li

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as she is with his own eyes, and toenter into the secrets of life, all tran-

scriptions become inadequate.He whohas heard the mysterious and haunting

monotone of the sea will never restcontent with the noblest harmony inwhich the composer seeks to blendthose deep, elusive tones; he who hassat hour by hour under the spell ofthe deep woods will feel that spellshorn of its magical power in thenoblest verse that ever sought to con-tain and express it; he who has oncelooked with clear, unflinching gaze intothe depths of human life will find onlyvague shadows of the mighty realitiesin the greatest drama and fiction. Theeternal struggle of art is to utter theseunutterable things; the immortal thirstof the soul will lead it again and againto these ancient fountains, whence itwill bring back its handful of waterin vessels curiously carven by the hands


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t

of imagination. But no cup of man^smaking will ever hold all that fountainhas to give, and to those who are

really athirst these golden and beauti-fully wrought vessels are insufficientthey must drink of the living stream.

In Arden we found these ancient andperennial fountains; and we drank deepand long. There was that in the mys-tery of the woods which made all

poetry seem pale and unreal to us;there was that in life, as we saw it inthe noble souls about us, which madeall records and transcriptions in booksseem cold and superficial. What needhad we of verse when the things whichthe greatest poets had seen with visionno clearer than ours lay clear

and un-speakably beautiful before us? Whathad fiction or history for us, upon whomthe thrilling spell of the deepest humanliving was laid Rosalind and I werehourly meeting those whose thoughts

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had fed the world for generations, andwhose names were on all lips, but theynever spoke of the books they had writ-ten, the pictures they had painted, themusic they had composed. And, strangeto say, it was not because of thesesplendid works that we were drawnto them; it was the quality of theirnatures, the deep, compelling charm oftheir minds, which filled us with joy intheir companionship. In Arden it is asmall matter that Shakespeare has

written ^^Hamlet,^^ or Wordsworth the** Ode on Immortality ** ; not that whichthey have accomplished but that whichthey are in themselves gives these

names a lustre in Arden such as shinesfrom no crown of fame in the outerworld. Rosalind and I had dreamedthat we might meet some of thosewhose words had been the food ofimmortal hope to us, but we almostdreaded that nearer acquaintance which

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J might dispel the illusion of superiority.

''IHow delighted were we to discover thatnot only are great souls, really under-

stood, greater than all their works, but

that the works were forgotten andnothing was remembered but the soulNot as those who are fed by the bountyof the king, but as kings ourselves, werewe received into this noble company.Were we not born to the same inheri-tance ? Were not Nature and life oursas truly as they were Shakespeare^s andWordsworth^s ? As we sat at restunder the great arms of the trees, orroamed at will through the woodlandpaths, the one thought that was com-mon to us all was, not how nobly thesescenes had been pictured and spoken,but how far above all language of artthey were, and how shallow runs thestream of speech when these mysterioustreasures of feeling and insight arelaunched upon it

90

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'-Mr'

:i,;ii '5ilill .lMl,;j,lilj ..; iiulv:,iYSt i ;iaiiiiiiNiaiii iiiiHffl(iiit^iiiiiiNiiiiiii iiiiiiiiiuitiiiwiHiinitwav x^^

The friendship of Nature is matchedin Arden with human friendships, assincere, as void of disguise and flattery,

as stimulating and satisfying. Thereare times when every sensitive personis wounded by misunderstanding of

motives, by lack of sympathy, by indif-

ference and coldness; such hours came

not infrequently to Rosalind and myself

in the old days before we set out for theForest. We found unfailing consolationand strength in our common faith andpurpose, but the frigidity of the atmos-

phere made us conscious at times of the

effort one puts forth to simply sustain

the life of his ideals, the charm and

sweetness of those secret hopes which

feed the soul. What must it be to liveamong those who are quick to recog-nise nobility of motive, to conspire with

aspiration, to believe in the best and

highest in each other ? It was to taste

such a life as this, to feel the consoling

f r *Nf^r

i

''rm


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power of mutual faith and the inspi- iration of a common devotion to theideals that were dearest to us, that ourthoughts turned so often and with such

^

longing to Arden. In such momentswe opened with delight certain bookswhich were full of the joy and beauty ofthe Forest life ; books which brought |back the dreams that were fading out ;

and touched us afresh with the un-J;searchable charm and beauty of the^

Ideal. Surely there could no betterfortune befall us than to be able to call

these great ministering spirits our

friends.

But, strong as was our longing, wcwere not without misgivings when wcfirst found ourselves in Arden. In this

commerce of ideas and hopes, what hadwe to give in exchange? How couldwe claim that equality with those welonged to know which is the only basis

^

of friendship? We were unconsciously^,i

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receding, and new continents of truthwere lifted up into the clear light ofconsciousness. All that was best in uswas set free ; we were confident wherewe had been uncertain and doubtful;we were bold where we had beenalmost cowardly. We spoke our deep-est thought frankly ; we drew from theirhiding-places our noblest dreams of thelife we hoped to live and the things wehoped to achieve ; we concealed nothing,reserved nothing, evaded nothing; wewere desirous above all things thatothers should know us as we knew our-selves. It was especially restful andrefreshing to speak of our failures andweaknesses, of our struggles and de-feats ; for these experiences of ours were

instantly matched by kindred experi-ences, and in the common sympathyand comprehension a new kind ofstrength came to us. The humiliationof defeat was shared, we found, by even

. 96


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the greatest ; and that which made thesenoble souls what they were was notifreedom from failure and weakness, but

steadfast struggle to overcome andachieve. As the life of a new hopefilled our hearts, we remembered with asudden pain the world out of which we ihad escaped, where every one hides his

weakness lest it feed a vulgar curiosity,

and conceals his defeats lest they be

used to destroy rather than to build himup.

With what delight did we find that inArden the talk touched only greatthemes, in a spirit of beautiful candour

and unaffected earnestness To haveexchanged the small personal talk from

which we had often been unable toescape for this simple, sincere discourse

on the things that were of commoninterest was like exchanging the cloud-enveloped lowland for some sunnymountain slope, where every breath

*

;'.;


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miR(jlttinfl '^- ' 1

was vital and one mused on half a con-tinent spread out at his feet. There is

no food for the soul but truth, and wewere filled with a mighty hunger whenwe understood for how long a time wehad been but half fed. A new strengthcame to us, and with it an openness ofmind and a responsiveness of heart that

made life an inexhaustible joy. Wewere set free from the weariness of old

struggles to make ourselves understood;

we were no longer perplexed withdoubts about the reality of our ideas;

we had but to speak the thought thatwas in us, and to live fearlessly andjoyously in the hour that was before us.Frank speaking, absolute candour, thatwould once have wounded, now only

cheered and stimulated; the spirit ofentire helpfulness drives out all morbid

self-consciousness. Differences no longer

embitter when courtesy and faith areuniversal possessions.

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'wimun

There is nothing more sacred than |friendship, and it is impossible to profane

it by drawing the veil from its minis-

tries. The charm of a perfectly noblecompanionship between two souls is as

real as the perfume of a flower,and as

impossible to convey by word or speech

Nature has made its sanctity inviolable

by making it forever impossible ofreve-

lation and transference. I cannot trans-

late into any language the delicatecharm, the inexhaustible variety,

the

noble fidelity to truth, the vigourand

splendour of thought, the unfailingsym-

pathy, of our Arden friendships; they

are a part of the Forest, and onemust

seek them there. It would vulgarise

these fellowships to catalogue the great

names, always familiar to us, and yet

which gained another and a better famil-

iarity when they ceased to recall famous

persons and became associated with

I those who sat at our hearthstone or99

mnWiiH Ml


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^^^W:k


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V

X

, . there *s no clock in the forest

a.^.


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There were a great many days inArden when we did absolutely nothingwe awoke without plans ; we fell asleepwithout memories. This was especiallytrue of the earlier part of our stay in the

'

Forest ; the stage of intense enjoyment^

of new-found freedom and repose. ^

There was a kind of rapture in thepossession of our days that was new tous; a sense of ownership of time of

which we had never so much asdreamed when we lived by the clock.Those tiny ornamental hands on the

delicately painted dial were our task-

masterst disguised under forms so dainty

and fragile that, while we felt theirtyranny, we never so much as suspected

their share in our servitude. Silentthemselves, they issued their commandsin tones we dared not disregard; fash-ioned so cunningly, they ruled us as

with iron sceptres; moving within so

small a circle, they sent us hither and

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1

IV

yon on every imaginable service. Theysevered eternity into minute fragments,

and dealt it out to us minute by minutelike a cordial given drop by drop to thedying; they marked with relentlessexactness the brief periods of our leisure

and indicated the hours of our toil. Wecould not escape from their vigilant and

inexorable surveillance; day and night

they kept silent record beside us, meas-

uring out the golden light of summer in

their tiny balances, and doling out thepittance of winter sunshine with nig-

gardly reluctance. They hastened tothe end of our joys, and moved withfunereal slowness through the appointed

times of our sorrow. They ruled everyseason, pervaded every day, recorded

every hour, and, like misers hoarding atreasure, doled out our birthright of

leisure second by second ; so that, being

rich, we were always impoverished;inheritors of vast fortune, we were put

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Dlhl, lllillM^' l/ll l',^ ' iiii


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r-.)

\< Ij

off with a meagre income ; born free,

we were servants of masters who

neither ate nor slept, that they might

never for a second surrender their

overseership.

There are no clocks in Arden ; the

sun bestows the day, and no imperti-

nence of men destroys its charm by

calculating its value and marking it with

a price. The only computers of time

are the great trees whose shadowsregister the unbroken march of light

from east to west. Even the days and

nights lost that painful distinctness

which they had for us when they gave

us a constant sense of loss, an incessant

apprehension of change and age. Their

shining procession leaves no suchrecords in Arden; they come like the

waves whose ceaseless flow sings of the

boundless sea whence they come. They

bring no consciousness of ebbing years

and joys and strength; they bring


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I

rather a sense of eternal resource andbeneficence. In Arden one never feelsin haste; there is always time enoughand to spare ; in fact, the word time isnever used in the vernacular of theForest except when reference is made tothe enslaved world without. Therewere moments at the beginning whenwe felt a little bewildered by our free-dom, and I think Rosalind secretlylonged for the familiar tones of the

cuckoo clock which had chimed somany years in and out for us in the olddays. One must get accustomed evento good fortune, and after one has beenconfined within the narrow limits of alittle plot of earth the possession of acontinent confuses and perplexes. Butmen are born to

goodfortune if

they butknew it, and we were soon reconciled tothe possession of inexhaustible wealth.

We felt the delight of a sudden exchangeof poverty for richness, a swift transition

loS


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M

from bondage to freedom. Eternity wasours, and we ceased to divide it intofragments, or to set it off into duties and

work. We lived in the consciousness ofa vast leisure; a quiet happiness took

the place of the old anxiety to always do

at the moment the thing that ought to be

done; we accepted the days as gifts ofjoy rather than as bringers of care.

It was delightful to fall asleep lulled

by the rustle of the leaves, and toawake, without memory of care orpressure of work, to a day that had

brought nothing more discordant into

the Forest than the singing of birds.

We rose exhilarated and buoyant, andbreakfasted merrily under a great oak;

sometimes we lingered far on into themorning, yielding ourselves to the spell

of the early day when it no longer

Iproses of work and duty, but sings of

freedom and ease and the strength that

makes a play of life. Often we strayed

^ArJ

Mi^


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*

li ^^ ytwfsMMt^j ^^^W

iW' ifete^

without plan or purpose^ as the winding

paths of the Forest led us; happy andcare-free as children suddenly let loose

in fairyland. We discovered moss-grown paths which led into the veryheart of the Forest, and we pressed onsilently from one green recess to another

until all memory of the sunnier worldfaded out of mind. Sometimes weemerged suddenly into a wide, brilliant

glade; sometimes we came into a sanc-tuary so overhung with great masses offoliage, so secluded and silent, that wetook the rude pile of moss-grown stones

we found there as an altar to solitude,and our stillness became part of theuniversal worship of silence whichtouched us with a deep and beautiful

solemnity. Wherever we strayed thesame tranquil leisure enfolded us; dayfollowed day in an order unbroken and

peaceful as the unfolding of the flowers

and the silent march of the stars. Time


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Slgf:r

m^i.\^

4^'f^

^''^''h

no longer ran like the few sands in adelicate hour-glass held by a fragilehuman hand^ but like a majestic riverfed by fathomless seas. The sky, bareand free from horizon to horizon, wasitself a symbol of eternity, with itsinfinite depth of colour, its sublime

serenity, its deep silence broken only

by the flight and songs of birds. Thesewere at home in that ethereal sphere,at rest in that boundless space, andwe were not slow to learn the lessonof their freedom and joy. We gaveourselves up to the sweetness of that

unmeasured life, without thought of

yesterday or to-morrow ; we drank thecup which to-day held to our lips, and

knew that so long as we were athirstthat draught would not be denied us.

^

'P^$;^


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. every of this happy numberThat have endured shrewd nights and

days with us,

Shall share the good of our returnedfortune,

According to the measure of their states


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K,


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;iW;'-'- >w^5ll'

^/;fiifl 'RRri L

phere of Arden, yield some truth ofcharacter or experience which, like the

rose, makes even the rough calyx whichencased it beautiful. We had some-times spoken together of our return il

to the world we had left, but we putoff as long as possible all definite prep-

arations. I am not sure that I shouldever have come back if Rosalind hadnot taken the matter into her ownhands. She remembered that there

was work to be done which oughtnot to be longer postponed; that there

were duties to be met which ought not

to be longer evaded; and when didgRosalind fail to be or to do that which|

the hour and the experience com-'

manded? We treasured the last daysas if the minutes were pure gold;we lingered in talk with our friendsas if we should never again hearsuch spoken words; we loitered in thewoods as if the spell of that beautiful

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silence would never again

And yet we knew that, once pos-sessed, these things were ours for ever

neither care, nor change, nor time,

nor death, could take them from us,

for henceforth they were part of our-

selves.

We stood again at length on thelittle porch, covered with dust, and

turned the key in the unused lock.

I think we were both a little reluctantto enter and begin again the old round

of life and work. The house seemedsmaller and less homelike, the furniture

had lost its freshness, the books on

the shelves looked dull and faded.

Rosalind ran to a window, opened it,

and let in a flood of sunshine. I con-fess I was beginning to feel a littleheartsick, but when the light fell onher I remembered the rainy day in

Arden, when the first rays after thestorm touched her and dispelled the

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pj. ..

gloom, and I realised, with a joy toodeep for words or tears, that I hadbrought the best of Arden with me.We talked little during those first daysof our home-coming, but we set thehouse in order, we recalled to thelonely rooms the old associations, andwe quietly took up the cares and bur-dens we had dropped. It was noteasy at first, and there were days whenwe were both heartsore; but we waited

and worked and hoped. Our neigh-bours found us more silent and absorbedthan of old, but neither that change norour absence seemed to have madeany impression upon them. Indeed, wceven doubted if they knew that wehad taken such a journey. Day byday we stepped into the old places andfell into the old habits, until all the

broken threads of our life were reunitedand we were apparently as much a partof the world as if we had never gone

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out of it and found a nobler and happier

sphere.

But there came to us gradually a

clear consciousness that, though wewere in the world, we were not of it,nor ever again could be. It was nolonger our world; its standards, its

thoughts, its pleasures, were not for us.

We were not lonely in it; on the con-trary, when the first impression of

strangeness wore off, we were happierthan we had ever been in the old days.Our reputation was no longer in thebreath of men; our fortune was nolonger at the mercy of rising or falling

markets ; our plans and hopes were no

longer subject to chance and change.

We had a possession in the Forest ofArden, and we had friends and dreamsthere beyond the empire of time and

fate. And when we compared thesecurity of our fortunes with the vicis-

situdes to which the estates of our119


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WllfSIll

neighbours were exposed; when wekcompared our noble-hearted friends,with their meaner companionshipswhen we compared the peaceful seren-ity of our hearts with their perplexitiesand anxieties^ we were filled with in-expressible sympathy. We no longerpierced them with the arrows of satireand wit because they accepted lowerstandards and found pleasure in thingsessentially pleasureless ; they had not

lived in Arden, and why should weberate them for not possessing thatwhich had never been within theirreach ? We saw that upon those whoman inscrutable fate has led through thepaths of Arden a great and noble dutyis laid. They are not to be the scorners,and despisers of those whose eyes arej^holden that they cannot see^ and whose fears are stopped that they cannot hear,

the vision and the melody of things^ideal. They are rather to be eyes toj


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]mmii)^hmmmmuwmmm\mmi,

the blind and ears to the deaf. Theyare to interpret in unshaken trust and

patience that which has been revealed

to them ; servants are they of the Ideal,and their ministry is their exceeding great

reward. So long as they see clearly,

it is small matter to them that their

message is rejected, the mighty conscK

lation which they bring refused; their

joy does not hang on acceptance or

rejection at the hands of their fellows.The only real losers are those who willnot see nor hear. It is not the light-

bringer who suffers when the torch istorn from his hands; it is those whose

paths he would lighten.

And more and more, as the days

went by, Rosalind and I found the lifeof the Forest stealing into our old

home. The old monotony was gone;the old weariness and depression crossed

our threshold no more. If work was

Ipressing, we were always looking


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through and beyond it ; we saw thefine results that were being accomplishedin it; we recognised the high necessitywhich imposed it. If perplexities andcares sat with us at the fireside, wereceived them as friends; for in thelight of Arden had we not seen theirharsh masks removed, and behind themthe benignant faces of those who pa-tiently serve and minister, and receiveno reward save fear and avoidance and

misconception ? In fact, having lived inArden, and with the consciousness thatwe might seek shelter there as inanother and securer home, the worldbarely touched us, save to awaken oursympathies and to evoke our help. Ithad little to give us; we had much togive it. There

was within and aboutus a peace and joy which were not forus alone. Our little home was foldedwithin impalpable walls, and beyond itlay a vision of green foliage and golden

.^Im

i'i'V}r*jiir;>ii (in m


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/- liir'fT^j 1

masses of cloud that never faded off the

horizon. There were benignant pres-ences in our rooms visible to no eyes

but ours; for our Arden friends didnot forsake us. There were memoriesbetween us which made all our daysbeautiful with the consciousness of

immortal faith and love; there werehopes which^ like celestial beings^ looked

upon us with eyes deep with unspeak-

able prophecy as they waited at thedoors of the future.

It is an autumn afternoon, and thesun lies warm on the ripening vines thatcover the wall, and on the late flowersthat bloom by the roadside. As I writethese words I look up from my portfolio,and Rosalind sits there, work in hand,smiling at me over her flying needle.My glance rests on her a moment, anda strange uncertainty comes over me.Have I really been in Arden, or have I

-^,.

ftofil(i*ti)Aiii Ji


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dreamed these things, looking into

PP'5ii Rosalind's eyes? It matters little' ^whether I have travelled or dreamed; y;|}

where Rosalind is, there, for me at least,lies the Forest of Arden.

iiifei


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Documents

in forest of arden