ON THE OTHER SIDE. A PLEA FOR SAVAGERY. 189 



fences and hedges ; after the footsteps, which had 

 bounded over the flower-strewn grass have been 

 circumscribed within firm gravel-walks, the vision 

 of its former happiness will still at times float before 

 the mind in its dreams." (" Guesses at Truth.") 



Beauty, Romance, and Nature await an audience 

 with you in the garden ; but it is Beauty after she 

 has been sent to school to learn the tricks of con- 

 scious grace ; Beauty that has " the foreign aid of 

 ornament," that walks with the supple gait of one 

 who has been well drilled ; but gone are the fine 

 careless raptures, gone the bounding step, the blithe 

 impulses of unschooled freedom and gipsy life out of 

 doors. 



Romance awaits you, holding in her hand a 

 picture of things bright and jocund, full of tender 

 colour and sweet suggestion ; a picture designed to 

 prove this world to be unruffled Arcadia, a sunlit 

 pageant, a dream of delectation, a place for solace, 

 a Herrick-land 



" Of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers ; " 



and human life a jewelled tale with all the irony left 

 out. 



Nature awaits you, but only as a fair captive, 

 ready to respond to your behests, to answer to the 

 spring of your imaginings. To man's wooing, " I 

 love you, love me back," she resigned herself, not 

 perceiving the drift of homage that was paid, not so 

 much to the beauty that she had, but to the beauty 

 of a heightened sort that should ensue upon his 

 cultivation, for the sake of which he sought her. 



