forests of Stowe and the fields of Flixton Abbey; to the right the steep
bank is green with the Earsham oaks, to the left the fast marsh lands
spotted with cattle stretch on to Beccles and Lowestoft, while behind me
my gardens and orchards rise in terraces up the turfy hill that in old
days was known as the Earl's Vineyard. All these are about me, and yet
in this hour they are as though they were not. For the valley of the
Waveney I see the vale of Tenoctitlan, for the slopes of Stowe the snowy
shapes of the volcans Popo and Iztac, for the spire of Earsham and the
towers of Ditchingham, of Bungay, and of Beccles, the soaring pyramids
of sacrifice gleaming with the sacred fires, and for the cattle in the
meadows the horsemen of Cortes sweeping to war.

It comes back to me; that was life, the rest is but a dream. Once more
I feel young, and, should I be spared so long, I will set down the story
of my youth before I am laid in yonder churchyard and lost in the world
of dreams. Long ago I had begun it, but it was only on last Christmas
Day that my dear wife died, and while she lived I knew that this task
was better left undone. Indeed, to be frank, it was thus with my wife:
She loved me, I believe, as few men have the fortune to be loved, and
there is much in my past that jarred upon this love of hers, moving her
to a jealousy of the dead that was not the less deep because it was so
gentle and so closely coupled with forgiveness. For she had a secret
sorrow that ate her heart away, although she never spoke of it. But one
child was born to us, and this child died in infancy, nor for all her
prayers did it please God to give her another, and indeed remembering
the words of Otomie I did not expect that it would be so. Now she knew
well that yonder across the seas I had children whom I loved by another
wife, and though they were long dead, must always love unalterably, and
this thought wrung her heart. That I had been the husband of another
woman she could forgive, but that this woman should have borne me