OF THE OTHER RODS 25 



Mr. Blennerhassett dawned upon me this morn- 

 ing, at the Lower End. 



Before I permit him to dawn upon you, let me 

 say something of the Lower End. I want you to 

 know this length of the Clere because it is the 

 most beautiful place in the world. Thus, as we go 

 along I propose to do my best my insufficient, 

 my miserably insufficient best to make you see it 

 all as I see it. 



I fancy that the sadness which sharpens our 

 delight in any rarely beautiful experience arises 

 from our knowledge that it is not to be captured. 

 We are doomed to lose it. There is to be no 

 putting of it away in a drawer, whence we 

 shall be able to take it out and relive it again 

 and again. Presently it will be gone, and no 

 trick or force of memory shall bring it back. 

 Again, we feel the hopelessness of any such 

 attempt. These exquisite things of the senses 

 may not be translated into any such cumbrous 

 medium as language. But though we despair, 

 we try. 



Of the Lower End, then, I will say that it is 

 broad and deep, dark, heavily weeded, flowing 

 leisurely between rushes and reed beds and withy 

 beds, under thick woods of beech and aspen and 

 willow ; a water for great fishes (not many), un- 

 friendly to small, not to be netted, pike haunted. 



