IN THE FOREST OF ARDEN. 141 



VI. 



Here feel we but the penalty of Adam, 

 The season s difference, as the icy fang 

 And churlish chiding of the winter wind, 

 Which, when it bites and blows upon my body, 

 Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say, 

 This is no flattery : these are counselors 

 That feelingly persuade me what I am. 



IF the ideal conditions of life, of which most of 

 us dream, could be realized, the result would be a 

 padded and luxurious existence, well-housed, well- 

 fed, well-dressed, with all the winds of heaven tem 

 pered to indolence and cowardice. We are saved 

 from absolute shame by the consciousness that if 

 such a life were possible we should speedily revolt 

 against the comforts that flattered the body while 

 they ignored the soul. In Arden there is no such 

 compromise with our immoral desires to get results 

 without work, to buy without paying for what we 

 receive. Nature keeps no running accounts and 

 suffers no man to get in her debt ; she deals with 

 us on the principles of immutable righteousness ; 

 she treats us as her equals, and demands from us 

 an equivalent for every gift or grace of sight or 

 sound she bestows. She rejects contemptuously 

 the advances of the weaklings who aspire to become 

 her beneficiaries without having made good their 

 claim by some service or self-denial ; she rewards 

 those only who, like herself, find music in the tern- 



