March 0. iQi(3. L A X D AND \V A T E R . 
THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY. 
By J. D. Symon. 
IN a more earthly sense than Hamlet's, e\ciyone has 
his undiscovered country, but he has this advan- 
tiVfic o\cr the Prince of Denmark, that this region, 
altliou;;ii for ever chisixe, is to some extent 
c'early delined. It belongs to no future, it exists here and 
now. We seem to Icnow where to iind it, we are always 
on the point of finding it, and lind it we do, with that 
inward eye which is the bliss of solitude, although to the 
eye of sense it remains for ever unrevealed. It is that 
ideal place where wc imagine we should be happy even on 
earth. There we would find the perfect dwelling-j>lacc, the 
perfect sky, the perfect air, at times there are glimpses of 
the perfect sea, and somewhere in the landscape there 
stands the perfect house. 
This imdisco\'ered country of ours is a shifting entity, 
and were it possible to captiuT it for a moment or two, and 
analyse it, it would be found to be made up of all our 
apjiroximations to the earthly Paradise, h'or e\eryone it 
lies in a different direction, but there are some who confess 
that this sense of well-being is most alive with them when 
they turn towards the southern outskirts of London. It 
is true that the northern heights can also arouse these 
indefinable sensations, but in this northern hemisphere 
the sun draws our mental attitude southward, as it did 
for Keats when he cried aloud for a beaker full of the 
warm South, full of the true, the blushful hippocrene. 
It is to the Undiscovered Country that we would retire 
on that hajDpy da>- when we have made our fortune, when 
we would have all things about us as \\-e would desire 
them to be, and enjoy for a moment such so\ ereignty over 
the world as our means allow. 
In poorer days we seek the Undiscovered Coimtry 
during holiday rambles, and for some it is inseparably 
connected with Saturday afternoon, when they are free 
to leave the town behind them and go out into those 
coimtry paths, one of which may at some unexpected 
moment bring us into the land of Beulah. It never does, 
but we are little discouraged by that which may be no 
misfortune after all, for the intrusion of the concrete is 
a consummation devoutly not to be desired in such 
spiritual adventures as those we have in hand. 
Prosaic Reality. 
The concrete is not to be escaped by those who still 
tread this solid earth, but we may touch 'prosaic reahty 
with our feet, we may see the actual landscape around us, 
and yet be one remove away, for the Undisco\-ered Coun- 
try always lies round the next corner. Now and then wc 
seem to catch actual glimpses of it, for there arc certain 
accessories of the landscape which are in an especial 
degree stimulating to this fantastic mood. Such stimulus 
lies more particularly in details of the middle distance 
and there is nothing more wildly romantic than to see 
across a wide \alley a turn of road that clashes for a moment 
into view, and winding round a spur of wood disappears 
whither we may ne\er know. But e\-ery day as we" look 
with the earliest light across that valley and see our little 
loop of roadway gleaming in the dawn, we vow that to- 
day we shall find the way there, stand at that romantic 
corner for a moment and learn what lies beyond. Well 
for us if we do not, for approach to that enchanted spot 
would rob it first of all of that diminished perfection which 
co-ordinates it as. a separate little picture bv itself, and 
makes it in the purest Greek scnsc-^idyllic. 
The Undisco\'ered Country shifts its ground, and 
lca\ing the open spaces flies townwa.rd to those com- 
fortable regions where town and country meet, and where 
hpuses that ought by rights to stand !in wide demesnes 
are content with gardens, ample perhaps, as townward 
gardens go, but all too meagije for the. dwellings which 
they serve. Some of these houses: might almost be stately 
homes of England did they stand amidst. sufficient acreage, 
but that felicity is denied them, although they have their 
own felicities. Some of them make up for their deficiencv 
of private roads by their neighbourhood to famous heaths 
and commons, and rambling there as .Ijhc twilight closes 
in, and the lights twinkle for a moment from windows 
soon to be screened with warm curtains, the wavfarer 
sees vet another aspect of his Undiscovered Countrv. 
He is beset with a strange and perhaps impertinent 
curiosity to view intimately his unknown neighboiu-'s 
house, and it teases him to reflect on the \-ast nvnnber of 
which he will never see more than the outside. Tli • 
infinite variety, the endless interest of such an exhibition 
would leave all museums tame by comparison, and the 
spectator would be hugely advanced in the proper study 
of mankind, were it possible for him to play the universal 
Asmodeus. He would desire, however, to approach in no 
cynical mood, for the region of the Undisco\eied Country 
has its root of fascination in its bene\-olent charm. 
The Twilight Spell. 
Its spell is, as wc have hinted, mo.?t potent at twilight, 
particularly in the winter, just before blinds are drawn 
and lamps are lighted and the warm interiors are fitfully 
revealed by winking firelight. Then it is that the other 
man's books and pictures, his choice old furniture and 
his cosy corners seem the right material of romance and 
the occasional figures that move past the windows in the 
firelight become inhabitants of a less ]-)rosaic world than 
our own. They are dream children, they breathe a rarer 
atmosphere, their interests and ho lights must be of finer 
texture than ours. We know very well that they have to 
face the same grey days as we ourselves must get through 
somehow, they sit down to the same sort of meals, they 
read the same papers, a similar world of tragedy and 
comedy presses in upon them hour by hour, but we refuse 
to take it literally. The People of the Undiscovered 
Country must, we think, be a degree above the ordinary, 
for their surroundings are so much more like a story-book 
than ours. 
" This is all nonsense," saj's the practical man, " your 
imagined felicities do not exist, and your story-book people 
are not to be found out of story-books. You think 
their houses and their possessions are out of the common. 
To them, believe me, they are commonplace. They 
do not see what you see in them : pcs.slbly they woiild think 
your household gods the altogether desirable, if they were 
afflicted with your lamentable turn of mind. Go to, Mr 
Dreamer, this is a practical age. Give us something 
])ractical and away with your moonings aroimd your 
neighbour's front gate. If you hang about there too long 
the Special or even the Ordinary Constable will have a 
word to say to you and you will probably see the inside 
of a residence you didn't bargain for. Buy an e\-ening 
paper, like a good, sensible man, go home and, if romance 
you must have, read the kiiillcton. For your Undis- 
covered Country and so forth will only get you into trouble. 
They are not the Legitimate Drama." 
He is no doubt a sound man, this counsellor in whom 
the spirit of Columbus does not stir, and there is no 
argument in our armoury that would avail with such. 
He has forgotten his childhood, otherwise it would be 
very easy to bring him to a gracious state of unreason 
with a single question. For if any doubt the existence ol 
the Undiscovered Country and its magic, let. them gc 
back for a moment to that old wisful puzzle of childish 
days : Why is the room or the \iew from the window so 
much more wonderful when you see it in the looking- 
glass ? It seems. a different, a nicer place somehow, a 
place you want to visit and enjoy on a long holidav. 
And the answer is simply this : It is the Undiscovered 
Country. 
During the early daj-s of the war the War Office and 
Admiralty accepted the generous offer of the Bath' Corpora- 
tion to give free treatment for wounded or invalided soldiers. 
The increased number of visitors to Bath, and the manv 
thousands of treatments given to officers and men, necessitated 
additional acconmiodation, and the new Royal Baths were 
opened recently by Field Marshal Lord French, who received 
a warm welcome from tlic people of Bath. 
The new establishment contains fifty rooms, and accom- 
modation is provided for a variety of treatments, including 
deep baths. Some of these are fitted with chairs for lowering 
helpless patients into the water. A large swinuning hath is 
under the same roof. Many great iniprnvemcnts in the 
gc'neral cipiipment of the establisliment ha\-c been introduced. 
