1 66 UNDER THE TREES. 



XI. 



.... every of this happy number 

 That have endur d shrewd nights and days with us. 

 Shall share the good of our returned fortune, 

 According to the measure of their states. 



THERE is this great consolation for those who 

 cannot live continually in the Forest of Arden : 

 that, having once proven one s citizenship there, 

 one can return at will. Those who have lived in 

 Arden and have gone back again into the world, 

 are sustained in their loneliness by the knowledge 

 of their fellowship with a nobler community. 

 Aliens though they are, they have yet a country to 

 which they are loyal, not through interest, but 

 through aspiration, imagination, faith, and love. 

 Rosalind and I found the months in Arden all too 

 brief ; our life there was one long golden day, 

 whose sunset cast a soft and tender light on our 

 whole past and made it beautiful for us. It is one 

 of the delights of the Forest that only the noblest 

 aspects of life are visible there ; or, rather, that 

 the hard and bare details of living, seen in the 

 atmosphere of Arden, yield some truth of character 

 or experience which, like the rose, makes even the 

 rough calyx which encased it beautiful. We had 

 sometimes spoken together of our return to the 

 world we had left, but we put off as long as possible 

 all definite preparations. I am not sure that I 

 should ever have come back if Rosalind had not 



