fishing, in mountain-climbing, or in long cycling excursions, and the
store of health laid up by these days gave new vigour to the mind when
the work of education was resumed.

When the summer came on, life became a daily lyric of delight. By five
in the morning, sometimes by four, we were out fishing. In the narrow
part of the glen there was a place where the rocks met in a wild
miniature gorge, and through them the water poured into a large
circular rock-basin, about forty feet in diameter. This was our
bathing-pool, and the cool shock and thrill of those exquisitely pure
and flowing waters runs along my nerves still as I write. We often
spent more than an hour there in the early morning, swimming from side
to side of our natural bath, diving off a rock which rose almost in the
centre of the pool, passing to and fro under the cascade, or sitting
out in the sun, till sheer hunger drove us home to breakfast. Writers
who boast a sort of finical superiority will no doubt disdain these
barbarian delights, and wonder that memory should be persistent over
mere physical sensations. But I am not sure that these physical
sensations are not recollected with more acuteness than mental ones,
and there is no just reason why they should be despised. I have
forgotten a good many aesthetic pleasures which at the time gave me
keen delight--some phrase in oratory, some movement in concerted music,
and such like--but I never forget the sensation of wind blowing over my
bare flesh as I coasted down a long mountain road on a broiling day in
August, nor the poignant thrill of that rushing water in my morning
bathes. And mixed with it all is the aromatic scent of the pines
beside the stream, the freshness of the meadows, and the song of
falling water. Sometimes, when the river was in summer flood, there
was just that spice of danger in our bathing which gave it a memorable
piquancy. On such occasions we had to use skill and coolness to avoid