SUSSEX 115 



hazels of the lane is dark as if with dream, and the road- 

 way leads glimmering straight on to a crystal planet low 

 in the purple of the west. I cannot hear my footsteps, 

 so full charged is the silence. I am no more in this 

 tranquillity than one of the trees. The way seems paved 

 that some fair spirit may pass down in perfect beauty 

 and bliss and ease. The leaves will hail it and the blue 

 sky lean down to bless, and the planet lend its beams for 

 a path. Suddenly, the name of Mary is called by some 

 one invisible. Mary! For a little while the cry is 

 repeated more loudly but always sweetly; then the caller 

 is entranced by the name, by the sound of her own voice 

 and the silence into which it falls as into a well, and it 

 grows less and less and ceases and is dead except in the 

 brain of the hearer. I thought of all the music to ear 

 and mind of that sound of " m." I suppose the depth 

 of its appeal is due to its place at the beginning of the 

 word " mother," or rather to the need of the soul which 

 gave it that place; and it is a sound as dear to the animals 

 as to us, since the ewe hears it first from her lamb and 

 the cow from her calf as the woman from her child. It 

 is the main sound in " music," " melody," " harmony," 

 "measure," " metre," " rhythm," " minstrel," "madrigal." 

 It endears even sadness by its presence in " melancholy," 

 " moan " and " mourn." It makes melody on the lips of 

 friends and lovers, in the names of " mistress," " com- 

 rade," " mate," " companion." It murmurs autumnally 

 in all mellow sounds, in the music of wind and insect and 

 instrument. To " me " and " mine " it owes a meaning as 

 deep as to " mother." And this mild air could bear no more 

 melodious burden than the name that floated upon it and 

 sank into it,down,down,to reveal its infinite depth — Mary ! 



