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in the poet's mind ; yet to the last there is none so 

 strong and fresh and vivid as were garnered in boyhood, 

 and that gain in enchantment with the lapse of time till 

 the rugged elms, the house on the hillside, the ringing 

 copse and spinney all bathed in the soft ' moonlight 

 of memory/ take on a beauty beyond that of fairy- 

 land. An attentive examination of the work of any 

 student and lover of earth will show a remarkable 

 limitation. What is new and real and valuable in it 

 belongs to the few acres round about some woodland 

 cottage or some quiet parsonage : the rest is but com- 

 mentary and illustration ; for a man can do no more 

 than widen his first impressions. At a first glimpse 

 the world seems fairer than ever it will seem again. 

 The sun is more cheerful, the dark and drifting clouds 

 are more mysterious, the trees more stately, the 

 flowers of finer hue ; for time not only blunts the 

 edge of sense but explains the romance and reduces 

 conjecture to mere circumstance. The jaded present 

 seems to grow ever more hackneyed and more com- 

 monplace, but it casts a magic light on the past, blithen- 

 ing the dismal and brightening the dark into an ideal 

 and perfect glory. And it well may be that the love 

 of home in its final and supreme expression is only 

 our hypnotic response to its strong compulsiveness. 



