To use the innermost eyes of his soul in such looking backward down
the stream of Time, as well as in looking forward to that 'crystal
sea' of the unknown Future, flowing round the Great White Throne
whence the river of life proceeds, was a favourite mental occupation
with John Walden. He loved antiquarian research, and all such
scientific problems as involve abstruse study and complex
calculation,--but equally he loved the simplest flower and the most
ordinary village tale of sorrow or mirth recounted to him by any one
of his unlessoned parishioners. He gave himself such change of air
and scene as he thought he required, by taking long swinging walks
about the country, and found sufficient relaxation in gardening, a
science in which he displayed considerable skill. No one in all the
neighbourhood could match his roses, or offer anything to compare
with the purple and white masses of violets which, quite early in
January came out under his glass frames not only perfect in shape
and colour, but full of the real 'English' violet fragrance, a
benediction of sweetness which somehow seems to be entirely withheld
from the French and Russian blooms. For the rest, he was physically
sound and morally healthy, and lived, as it were, on the straight
line from earth to heaven, beginning each day as if it were his
first life-opportunity, and ending it soberly and with prayer, as
though it were his last.

To such a mind and temperament as his, the influences of Nature, the
sublime laws of the Universe, and the environment of existence, must
needs move in circles of harmonious unity, making loveliness out of
commonness, and poetry out of prose. The devotee of what is
mistakenly called 'pleasure,'--enervated or satiated with the sickly
moral exhalations of a corrupt society,--would be quite at a loss to
understand what possible enjoyment could be obtained by sitting