IN STORM AND SHINE 59 



is usually in no way eager to run away, although 

 well aware that the sheltered distractions of the 

 towns are within quite easy reach. One finds no 

 really compensating counterpart in kursaals and 

 shop-windows for an Alpine springtime where 

 flowering pastures kiss "the crystal treasures of 

 the liquid world." One need not be a poet, one 

 need not be a painter, one need not be a mystic, 

 and one certainly need be no *' neurasthenic " to 

 appreciate the figurative sunshine of which spring's 

 Alpine inclemency is redolent. One has but to 

 be natural — a sanely-simple human being, dis- 

 missing the hampering prejudices and conventions 

 born of towns, and allowing the appeal of Nature 

 to come freely into its own. Then oneself is 

 busy a- weaving — a- weaving of cobweb dreams ; 

 and the cobwebs are woven of material worthy, 

 substantial, and real. One's dreams are not of that 

 solid, sordid order, nor of that frail, unhealthy 

 nature so common with dreams arising from un- 

 natural town-life. They are children of completest 

 sanity, and they are in no part begot of ennui. 

 One builds, and one builds for health's sake ; nor 

 does the building know aught of " castles in Spain." 

 There is no question here of anaemic fancy. All 

 that one dreams is not only possible, but sound. 



