JUNE ,39 



whom I had once seemed to know well, had roamed and 

 talked and been silent with him, and I should have gone 

 on doing so had he not gone far away and died. And 

 when I heard of his death I kept on recalling his face 

 and figure to my mind under familiar conditions, in the 

 old rooms, by the same river, under the same elms. As 

 before, I saw him in the clothes which he used to wear, 

 smiling or laughing or perhaps grim. But wherever he 

 was and whatever his look, there was always something 

 — the shadow of a shadow, but awful — in his face which 

 made me feel that had I only seen it (and I felt that I 

 ought to have seen it), in those days, I should have known 

 he was to die early, with ambitions unfulfilled, far away. 



And in this same way will the brain work in musing 

 of earlier times. All that has come after deepens that 

 candid brow of the child as a legend will darken a bright 

 brook. 



I once saw a girl of seven or eight years walking alone 

 down a long grassy path in an old garden. On one hand 

 rose a peaceful long slope of down; on the other, beyond 

 the filberts, a high hedge shut out all but the pale blue 

 sky, with white clouds resting on its lower mist like 

 water-lilies on a still pool. Turning her back to the 

 gabled house and its attendant beeches, she walked upon 

 the narrow level path of perfect grass. The late after- 

 noon sun fell full upon her, upon her brown head and 

 her blue tunic, and upon the flowers of the borders at 

 either side, the lowly white arabis foaming wild, the 

 pansy, the white narcissus, the yellow jonquil and daf- 

 fodil, the darker smouldering wallflowers, the tall yellow 

 leopard's-bane, the tufts of honesty among the still dewy 

 leaves of larkspur and columbine. But here and there, 



