1 82 Winter 



Coila passed into ' the auld clay biggin ' and bound 

 her favourite's head with holly. Indeed, there is hardly 

 anything sweeter to hear of than the hope and fancy of 

 a fair young ambition ; for in that airy and graceful 

 form it is more beautiful than any realised career. It is 

 pleasanter, more stirring and suggestive, and far more 

 profitable (except to the cynic) to picture the eager 

 boy student Carlyle breathing as his inmost desire the 

 hope of literary fame than to hear the aged and un- 

 happy philosopher of Chelsea vituperating the 'goose- 

 goddess ' whose favours he had found so unreal. What 

 a. contrast there is between the gentle aspirant of Coate, 

 out-of-elbows, out-of-luck, confidently foreseeing a 

 laurel crown, and the dying celebrity wistfully living 

 .again the hours from which his dreams had been an 

 escape. 



Life rigidly confined to the present would be un- 

 bearable. On a journey what an exquisite and 

 romantic charm resides in the landscape before us ; 

 how the lakes gleam and nestle among the woods, 

 how silvery white the streams, what a glory on the hill- 

 tops ! When we approach the magical beauty fades 

 away. The cold ripples of the water, the bleak grass 

 of the mountain, alone of all the hazy ineffable charm 

 remain to mock enthusiasm. We look behind, and lo ! 

 the last gleam has settled there. Every common 

 hedgerow and tree, the winding road, the copse in the 

 hollow, the spinney on the hillside, have been arranged 

 into a picture that makes you grieve for having left 



