paraMse Circle 



keep up a strange watchfulness; they 

 know, somehow, that the decision is 

 against them. 



When I lean my unstrung bow against a 

 blooming wild haw-bush, hang my quiver 

 beside it, and seat myself to read, there is a 

 composite impression of aloofness, wide 

 separation from mankind, and remoteness 

 from things modern and conventional. Yet 

 I am disturbed not unpleasantly, still pro- 

 foundly and, strangely, by a sense of help- 

 lessness and danger, which, when analyzed, 

 turns out to be a remote consciousness that 

 this life I so enjoy is really the forbidden 

 life, the life long since abolished. I am 

 dreaming, and I fear the awakening — I am 

 playing, and I dread the call to work! 



A tenuous delight spreads wine-like in 

 one's veins at the first genuine touch of 

 solitude ; and let me tell you that a bow 

 has a virtue in it which you feel slip along 

 your nerves to stir your imagination, espe- 

 cially when the bow is a fine old yew, 

 richly colored in grain and fiber by long 

 use, and stands so near you that your 

 elbow may fondle it while you read Chau- 



36 



