IN THE FOREST OF ARDEN. 121 



would make upon some sensitive mind of a remote 

 age. I have fancied myself rambling about New 

 York with Montaigne, and taking note of his shrewd, 

 satirical comment. I can hardly imagine him ex 

 pressing any feeling of surprise, much less any 

 sentiment of admiration ; but I am confident that 

 under a masque of ironical self-complacency the 

 old Gascon would find it difficult to repress his 

 astonishment, and still more difficult to adjust his 

 mind to evident and impressive changes. I have 

 ventured at times to imagine myself in the company 

 of another more remote and finely organized spirit 

 of the past, and pictured to myself the keen, dis 

 passionate criticism of Pericles on the things of 

 modern habit and creation ; I have listened to his 

 luminous interpretations of the changed conditions 

 which he saw about him ; I have noted his uncon 

 cern toward the merely material advances of so 

 ciety, his penetrative insight into its intellectual 

 and moral developments. A mind so capacious 

 and open, a nature so trained and poised, could 

 not be otherwise than self-contained and calm even 

 in the presence of changes so vast and manifold as 

 those which have transformed society since the 

 days of the great Athenian ; but even he could not 

 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 conditions, a certain sense of 

 wonder and awe. 



