MY OLD VILLAGE. 327 



books arc alive. The book I have still, it cannot die ; 

 the ash copses are cut, and the hazel mounds de- 

 stroyed. 



Was every one, then, so pleasant to me in those days ? 

 were the people all so beneficent and kindly that I must 

 needs look back ; all welcoming with open hand and 

 open door ? No, the reverse ; there was not a single one 

 friendly to me. Still that has nothing to do with it ; 

 I never thought about them, and I am quite certain 

 they never thought about me. They are all gone, and 

 there is an end. Incompatibility would describe our 

 connection best. Nothing to do with them at all ; 

 it was me. I planted myself everywhere in all the 

 fields and under all the trees. The curious part of it is 

 that though they are all dead, and ' worms have eaten 

 them, but not for love,' we continually meet them in 

 other shapes. We say, ' Holloa, here is old So-and-so 

 coming ; that is exactly his jaw, that's his Flemish face ; 

 or, ' By Jove, yonder is So-and-so ; that's his very walk : ' 

 one almost expects them to speak as one meets them in 

 the street. There seem to be certain set types which con- 

 tinually crop up again whithersoever you go, and even 

 certain tricks of speech and curves of the head a set of 

 family portraits walking about the world. It was not 

 the people, neither for good, for evil, nor indifference. 



I planted myself everywhere under the trees in the 

 fields and footpaths, by day and by night, and that is 

 why I have never put myself into the charge of the many 

 wheeled creatures that move on the rails and gone back 

 thither, lest I might find the trees look small, and the 

 elms mere switches, and the fields shrunken, and the 

 brooks dry, and no voice anywhere. Nothing but my 

 iown ghost to meet me by every hedge. I fear lest I 

 should find myself more dead than all the rest. And 



