CHESTNUTS BY THE WAY 



on the horizon. The other half was in the soul. 

 If there is not a responsive luminary within that 

 rises with equal gladness and stretches out a kin 

 dred ray, then are we cattle. I think it is well to 

 keep an album for these daybreaks of the soul. 

 Not that it shall be shown, but that it may shine 

 permanently into one s own private darks. And 

 I am free to confess that I should never have 

 made this discovery of my own sunrise if the 

 Doctor had not been along with me and in his 

 own vital way pointed out to me that if there are 

 any darks at all, it is the fault of our vision. 



Six o clock of an October morning, and two 

 men of the world, mind you, standing by the side 

 of a cow-shed, drunken with the prospect ; actu 

 ally struck dumb for a few moments by the blaz 

 onry of the regularly uneventful. The sun was 

 coming up behind the distant trees. We looked 

 at it as if it were a revelation. My idea of a sun 

 rise was of something placidly grand ; a kind of 

 orbed and systematic attention to business ; some 

 thing superbly unperturbed and inevitable and 

 too far off to elicit more than a respectful awe. 

 But this sunrise had a reckless dance in it. We 

 had caught the old orb unawares in a positive 

 dithyramb, and as I watched the choric rhythmus 

 in the trees, flashing and leaping amid the gnarled 

 branches that took on grotesque involutions 

 in one blessed instant I felt sure that there were 

 satyrs and fauns, wet with the cool dew, cavorting 

 in Attic exuberance under those trees. 



On the opposite side of our outlook the groves 

 205 



