JUNE 127 



we in the valley sigh at the thought that where we have 

 often trod is heaven now. Such beauties of the earth, 

 seen at a distance and inaccessibly serene, always recall 

 the equally inaccessible happiness of childhood. Why 

 have we such a melting mood for what we cannot reach ? 

 Why, as we are whirled past them in a train, does the 

 sight of a man and child walking quietly beside a reedy 

 pond, the child stooping for a flower and its gossip 

 unheard— why should we tremble to reflect that we have 

 never tasted just that cloistered balm ? 



Perhaps the happiest childhoods are those which pass 

 completely away and leave whole tracts of years without 

 a memory; those which are remembered are fullest of 

 keen joy as of keen pain, and it is such that we desire for 

 ourselves if we are capable of conceiving such fantastic 

 desires. I confess to remembering little joy, but to much 

 drowsy pleasure in the mere act of memory. I watch the 

 past as I have seen workless, homeless men leaning over 

 a bridge to watch the labours of a titanic crane and 

 strange workers below in the ship running to and fro and 

 feeding the crane. I recall green fields, one or two 

 whom I loved in them, and though no trace of such 

 happiness as I had remains, the incorruptible tranquillity 

 of it all breeds fancies of great happiness. I recall many 

 scenes : a church and churchyard and black pigs running 

 down from them towards me in a rocky lane — ladslove 

 and tall, crimson, bitter dahlias in a garden — the sweetness 

 of large, moist yellow apples eaten out of doors — children : 

 I do not recall happiness in them, yet the moment that I 

 return to them in fancy I am happy. Something like this 

 is true also of much later self-conscious years. I cannot 

 — I am not tempted to — allow what then spoiled the 



