I3 2 UNDER THE TREES. 



illusive prize is gained, one holds it by the frailest 

 tenure. An interruption diverts the current, cuts 

 the golden thread, breaks the exquisite harmony. 

 I have often thought that Dante was far less unfor 

 tunate than the world has judged him to be. If he 

 had been courted and crowned instead of rejected 

 and exiled, it might have been that his genius 

 would have missed the conditions which gave it 

 immortal utterance. Left to himself, he had only 

 his own nature to reckon with ; the world passed 

 him by, and left him to the companionship of his 

 sublime and awful dreams. To be left alone with 

 one s self is often the highest good fortune. More 

 over, I detest being hurried : it seems to me the 

 most offensive way in which we are reminded of 

 our mortality ; there is time enough if we know 

 how to use it. People who, like Goethe, never 

 rest and never haste, complete their work and 

 escape the friction of it. 



One of the most delightful things about life in 

 Arden is the absence of any sense of haste ; life 

 is a matter of being rather than of doing, and 

 one shares the tranquillity of the great trees that 

 silently expand year by year. The fever and rest 

 lessness are gone, the long strain of nerve and will 

 relaxed ; a delicious feeling of having strength and 

 time enough to live one s life and do one s work 

 fills one with a deep and enduring sense of repose. 



Rosalind, who had been busy about so many 

 things that I sometimes almost lost sight of her for 



