Maker: above the world of sense, trodden by hidebound humanity, he builds
that world of his own whereto is summoned the unfettered spirit. Why
does it delight me to see the bat flitting at dusk before my window, or
to hear the hoot of the owl when all the ways are dark? I might regard
the bat with disgust, and the owl either with vague superstition or not
heed it at all. But these have their place in the poet's world, and
carry me above this idle present.

I once passed a night in a little market-town where I had arrived tired
and went to bed early. I slept forthwith, but was presently awakened by
I knew not what; in the darkness there sounded a sort of music, and, as
my brain cleared, I was aware of the soft chiming of church bells. Why,
what hour could it be? I struck a light and looked at my watch.
Midnight. Then a glow came over me. "We have heard the chimes at
midnight, Master Shallow!" Never till then had _I_ heard them. And the
town in which I slept was Evesham, but a few miles from
Stratford-on-Avon. What if those midnight bells had been to me but as
any other, and I had reviled them for breaking my sleep?--Johnson did not
much exaggerate.



XX.


It is the second Jubilee. Bonfires blaze upon the hills, making one
think of the watchman on Agamemnon's citadel. (It were more germane to
the matter to think of Queen Elizabeth and the Armada.) Though wishing
the uproar happily over, I can see the good in it as well as another man.
English monarchy, as we know it, is a triumph of English common sense.