tortoise making a stately meal off the buttercups near me, these
are great events in this haven of peace. And yet, looking back to
the working days, I know how much goodness and loving kindness
there is under the froth and foam. If we do not know ourselves we
most certainly do not know our brethren: that revelation awaits
us, it may be, first in Heaven. To have faith is to create; to
have hope is to call down blessing; to have love is to work
miracles. Above all let us see visions, visions of colour and
light, of green fields and broad rivers, of palaces laid with fair
colours, and gardens where a place is found for rosemary and rue.

It is our prerogative to be dreamers, but there will always be men
ready to offer us death for our dreams. And if it must be so let
us choose death; it is gain, not loss, and the gloomy portal when
we reach it is but a white gate, the white gate maybe we have known
all our lives barred by the tendrils of the woodbine.



CHAPTER IV



Rain, rain, rain: the little flagged path outside my window is a
streaming way, where the coming raindrops meet again the grey
clouds whose storehouse they have but just now left. The grass
grows greener as I watch it, the burnt patches fade, a thousand
thirsty beads are uplifted for the cooling draught.

The great thrush that robs the raspberry canes is busy; yesterday