50 Spring 



the neighbourhood of the great city, his melody rings 

 from a hundred corners. 



Call and challenge and retort are carolled from 

 polluted thicket to prostituted grove, from degraded 

 bush to trodden and squalid undergrowth. Nay 

 (you say), but at night the tall trees are as majestic 

 and mysterious near the city as out in the wild, with 

 none but the visitant winds to mark their great 

 transfiguration. But you shall not ravish yourself to 

 Arcady by this trick of fancy. It is past eleven ; the 

 suburban public-houses are closed ; the paths that lead 

 by your chorister's perch are dotted with reeling 

 drunkards some exclaiming within a few yards of 



him that it is ' three miles to Stratford,' others 



profaning the still and solemn night with an inevit- 

 able refrain ; a cartload of girls from a bean-feast, a 

 tipsy picnic party, a horn-blowing coach-and-four, a 

 brass band very much out of tune, a concertina kept 

 going by a blunt unsteady touch, the puffing and 

 clanking of a train all these are here, and all these 

 bear each his testimony that there is a mighty difference 

 between the skirts of Epping and the haunted groves 

 of Arden ! But the nightingales do not know it. 

 Experience has taught that there is nothing to fear 

 from these strayed revellers, and they sing on indiffer- 

 ent as the wind. And if yourself be able, you also, 

 to put off your interest in things external : if you will 

 be content for a time neither to anticipate nor to 

 remember, neither to sorrow nor to rejoice, but to 



