The Pleasures of June 83 



knowledge to regret. A sorceress, looking on for ages 

 at a monotonous repetition of the tragi-comedy of the 

 appearance and disappearance of life, would find a 

 last refuge in irony. It is pitilessness in a mask of 

 sympathy. Nature, in fact, acts the polite worldling 

 to her friends. She is a consoler as long as you do 

 not doubt her sincerity, and when that moment comes 

 she carries her easy and graceful and superficial smile 

 to others. 



So when I wish to be cheerful I hie me down from 

 the mountain-top to the snug graveyard that nestles 

 in the valley. There Nature, Fate, Destiny, whatever 

 you like' to call her, has done her worst. The lives of 

 them that lie there have been lived and are done with. 

 But they are not destroyed. Having once been ad- 

 mitted into the kingdom of Time they can never 

 again be excluded. If I do not know the personalities 

 of the sleepers, it is at least open to me to fit them 

 from imagination, and to make them live their lives 

 once more in a reconstructed world. To the fancy of 

 a dreamer a village churchyard is as rich a storehouse 

 of materials as the annals of history. And no sorrow 

 need mingle with one's meditations here, for the place 

 is purged alike of fear and suffering. Nature's 

 irony is apparent only when she is decked in holiday 

 robes, and her soft unceasing voice talks love, and her 

 laughter seems to rest on all the fields. 



