all our courage--the realisation of the awful solitariness in which each
of us lives and dies. Often I could cry for pity of our forlornness, and
of the pathos of our endeavours to comfort ourselves. With what an agony
of patience we build up the theories of consolation that are to protect,
in times of trouble, our quivering and naked souls! And how fatally
often the elaborate machinery refuses to work at the moment the blow is
struck.

I got up and turned my face away from the unbearable, indifferent
brightness. Myriads of small suns danced before my eyes as I went along
the edge of the stream to the seat round the oak in my spring garden,
where I sat a little, looking at the morning from there, drinking it in
in long breaths, and determining to think of nothing but just be happy.
What a smell of freshly mown grass there was, and how the little heaps
into which it had been raked the evening before sparkled with dewdrops
as the sun caught them. And over there, how hot the poppies were already
beginning to look--blazing back boldly in the face of the sun, flashing
back fire for fire. I crossed the wet grass to the hammock under the
beech on the lawn, and lay in it awhile trying to swing in time to the
nightingale's tune; and then I walked round the ice-house to see how
Goethe's corner looked at such an hour; and then I went down to the fir
wood at the bottom of the garden where the light was slanting through
green stems; and everywhere there was the same mystery, and emptiness,
and wonder. When four o'clock drew near I set off home again, not
desiring to meet gardeners and have my little hour of quiet talked
about, still less my dressing-gown and slippers; so I picked a bunch of
roses and hurried in, and just as I softly bolted the door, dreadfully
afraid of being taken for a burglar, I heard the first water-cart of the
day creaking round the corner. Fearfully I crept up to my room, and when
I awoke at eight o'clock and saw the roses in a glass by my side, I