An Autumn Reverie 141 



much courage to be idle, to ripe and ripe in steadfast 

 tranquillity, to rot and rot without flinching, to expand 

 as calmly as the leaf, to wither as uncomplainingly as 

 the flower. The dull workaday citizen plods wearily 

 on his journey for so many hours, and sleep wafts him 

 forward during so many more. Every sunset and sun- 

 rise sees him nearer the end, and in his humble way 

 he is glad, not to be too ardently assailed by cold and 

 hunger, to have some comfort at his hostelry, to reach 

 death by easy stages. More fiery and strenuous souls 

 angry at the slow and jogging pace spring to right 

 and left in pursuit of three masked elusive figures 

 they fain would make companions of. But Pleasure 

 flies from her wooer and flouts him, Fame that frowns 

 on lusty youth mocks bitter age with her embraces, 

 and Wealth the prostitute makes him father of an evil 

 offspring. 



As the kindly spectator, whose dancing days are 

 over, is visited in his overlooking balcony by many a 

 ball-room queen with smiles she will not accord to the 

 envious love-sick gallant, so he who contentedly from 

 an outside vantage point surveys the world's chasing 

 throng may in his cosy nook have many a vision of 

 the damsels who are so shy to their declared and 

 ardent lovers. They come in their simplest apparel, 

 and when at his bidding they unmask, it is to disclose 

 no proud and haughty beauty such as in their mad- 

 ness their frantic suitors have imagined, but sweetness, 

 modesty, and simplicity, such as dwell only on the 



