And to-night, as I lie here under the cool, complete heavens, with only a
twinkling cottage light here and there in the bay to remind me of unrest,
I see life afresh in the old, simple, eternal lines. These are _our_ days
of full consciousness.

Do you remember that clearing in the woods where the long weeds and grass
were spotted with white stones--burial-place it was--their bright faces
turned ever to the sunshine and the stars? They spoke of other lives than
yours and mine. Forgotten little units in our disdainful world, we pass
them scornfully by. Other lives, and perhaps better, do you think? For
them the struggle never came which holds us in a fist of brass, and
thrashes us up and down the pavement of life. Perhaps--can you not, at one
great leap, fancy it?--two sincere souls could escape from this brass
master, and live, unmindful of strife, for a little grave on a hillside in
the end? They must be strong souls to renounce that cherished hope of
triumph, to be content with the simple, antique things, just living and
loving--the eternal and brave things; for, after all, what you and I burn
for so restlessly is a makeshift ambition. We wish to go far, "to make the
best of ourselves." Why not, once for all, rely upon God to make? Why not
live and rejoice?

And the little graves are not bad: to lie long years within sound of this
great-hearted ocean, with the peaceful, upturned stones bearing this full
legend, "This one loved and lived...." Forgive me for making you sad.
Perhaps you merely laugh at the intoxication your clear air has brought
about. Well, dearest lady, the ships are striking their eight bells for
midnight, the gayest cottages are going out, light by light, and somewhere
in the still harbor I can hear a fisherman laboriously sweeping his boat
away to the ocean. Away!--that is the word for us: I, in this boat