Only the other day, coming home from his after-noon’s walk, he stopped to admire his house.  The long shadow of its familiar trees awakened an extraordinary love in him, and when he crossed the threshold and sat down in his armchair, his love for his house had surprised him, and he sat like one enchanted by his own fireside, lost in admiration of the old mahogany bookcase with the inlaid panels, that he had bought at an auction.  How sombre and quaint it looked, furnished with his books that he had had bound in Dublin, and what pleasure it always was to him to see a ray lighting up the parchment bindings!  He had hung some engravings on his walls, and these had become very dear to him; and there were some spoons, bought at an auction some time ago—­old, worn Georgian spoons—­that his hands were accustomed to the use of; there was an old tea-service, with flowers painted inside the cups, and he was leaving these things; why?  He sought for a reason for his leaving them.  If he were going away to join Nora in America he could understand his going.  But he would never see her again—­at least, it was not probable that he would.  He was not following her, but an idea, an abstraction, an opinion; he was separating himself, and for ever, from his native land and his past life, and his quest was, alas! not her, but—­He was following what?  Life?  Yes; but what is life?  Do we find life in adventure or by our own fireside?  For all he knew he might be flying from the very thing he thought he was following.  His thoughts zigzagged, and, almost unaware of his thoughts, he compared life to a flower—­to a flower that yields up its perfume only after long cultivation—­and then to a wine that gains its fragrance only after it has been lying in the same cellar for many years, and he started up convinced that he must return home at once.  But he had not taken many steps before he stopped: 

’No, no, I cannot stay here year after year!  I cannot stay here till I die, seeing that lake always.  I couldn’t bear it.  I am going.  It matters little to me whether life is to be found at home or abroad, in adventure or in habits and customs.  One thing matters—­do I stay or go?’

He turned into the woods and walked aimlessly, trying to escape from his thoughts, and to do so he admired the pattern of the leaves, the flight of the birds, and he stopped by the old stones that may have been Druid altars; and he came back an hour after, walking slowly through the hazel-stems, thinking that the law of change is the law of life.  At that moment the cormorants were coming down the glittering lake to their roost.  With a flutter of wings they perched on the old castle, and his mind continued to formulate arguments, and the last always seemed the best.