IN THE FOREST OF ARDEN. 155 



In Arden we found these ancient and perennial 

 fountains ; and we drank deep and long. There 

 was that in the mystery of the woods which made 

 all poetry seem pale and unreal to us ; there was 

 that in life, as we saw it in the noble souls about 

 us, which made all records and transcriptions in 

 books seem cold and superficial. What need had 

 we of verse when the things which the greatest 

 poets had seen with vision no clearer than ours lay 

 clear and unspeakably beautiful before us ? What 

 had fiction or history for us, upon whom the thrill 

 ing spell of the deepest human living was laid ! 

 Rosalind and I were hourly meeting those whose 

 thoughts had fed the world for generations, and 

 whose names were on all lips, but they never spoke 

 of the books they had written, the pictures they 

 had painted, the music they had composed. And, 

 strange to say, it was not because of these splendid 

 works that we were drawn to them ; it was the 

 quality of their natures, the deep, compelling charm 

 of their minds, which filled us with joy in their 

 companionship. In Arden it is a small matter 

 that Shakespeare has written &quot; Hamlet,&quot; or Words 

 worth the &quot; Ode on Immortality &quot; ; not that 

 which they have accomplished but that which they 

 are in themselves gives these names a luster in 

 Arden such as shines from no crown of fame in the 

 outer world. Rosalind and I had dreamed that 

 we might meet some of those whose words had 

 been the food of immortal hope to us, but we al- 



