MY OLD VILLAGE. 327 
books are alive. The book I have still, it cannot die; 
the ash copses are cut, and the hazel mounds de- 
stroyed. 
Was every one, then, so pleasant to me in those days? 
were the people all so beneficent and kindly that I must 
‘needs look back; all welcoming with open hand and 
open door? No, the reverse ; there was nota single one 
friendly to me. Still that has nothing to do with it; 
I never thought about them, and I am quite certain 
they never thought about me. They are all gone, and 
there is an end. Incompatibility would describe our 
connection best. Nothing to do with them at all; 
it was me. I planted myself everywhere—in all the 
fields and under all the trees. The curious part of it is 
that though they are all dead, and ‘worms have eaten 
them, but not for love, we continually meet them in 
other shapes. We say, ‘ Holloa, here is old So-and-so 
coming ; that is exactly his jaw, that’s his Flemish face ;’ 
or, ‘ By Jove, yonder is So-and-so ; that’s his very walk :’ 
one almost expects them to speak as one meets them in 
the street. There seem to be certain set types which con- 
tinually crop up again whithersoever you go, and even 
certain tricks of speech and curves of the head—a set of 
family portraits walking about the world. It was not 
the people, neither for good, for evil, nor indifference. 
I planted myself everywhere under the trees in the 
fields and footpaths, by day and by night, and that is 
why I have never put myself into the charge of the many 
wheeled creatures that move on the rails and gone back 
thither, lest I might find the trees look small, and the 
elms mere switches, and the fields shrunken, and the 
brooks dry, and no voice anywhere. Nothing but my 
own ghost to meet me by every hedge. I fear lest I 
should find myself more dead than all the rest. And 
