the most charitable intent—­for it was planned to supply invalids in the neighbourhood with ice, as the, hothouses supplied them with grapes; and revealing, after all, nothing but a puddle of dirty water.  You see more successful works—­the Professor’s little private garden, which he is supposed to cultivate with his own hands; various little wells and watercourses among the rocks, moss-grown and fern-embowered; and so you come out on the moor.

There great works go on.  Juniper is being rooted up; boggy patches drained and cultivated cranberries are being planted, and oats grown; paths engineered to the best points of view; rocks bared to examine the geology—­though you cannot get the Professor to agree that every inch of his territory has been glaciated.  These diversions have their serious side, for he is really experimenting on the possibility of reclaiming waste land; perhaps too sanguine, you think, and not counting the cost.  To which he replies that, as long as there are hands unemployed and misemployed, a government such as he would see need never be at a loss for labourers.  If corn can be made to grow where juniper grew before, the benefit is a positive one, the expense only comparative.  And so you take your pick with the rest, and are almost persuaded to become a companion of St. George.

Not to tire a new comer, he takes you away after a while to a fine heathery promontory, where you sit before a most glorious view of lake and mountains.  This, he says, is his “Naboth’s vineyard";[46] he would like to own so fine a point of vantage.  But he is happy in his country retreat, far happier than you thought him; and the secret of his happiness is that he has sympathy with all around him, and hearty interest in everything, from the least to the greatest.

[Footnote 46:  Since then become part of the Brantwood estate.]

Coming down from the moor after the round, when you reach the front door you must see the performance of the waterfall:  everybody must see that.  On the moor a reservoir has been dug and dammed, with ingenious flood-gates—­Ruskin’s device, of course—­and a channel led down through the wood to a rustic bridge in the rock.  Some one has stayed behind to let out the water, and down it comes; first a black stream and then a white one, as it gradually clears; and the rocky wall at the entrance becomes for ten minutes a cascade.  This too has it uses; not only is there a supply of water in case of fire (the exact utilisation of which is yet undecided), but it illustrates one of his doctrines about the simplicity with which works of irrigation could be carried out among the hills of Italy.

And so you go in to tea and chess, for he loves a good game of chess with all his heart.  He loves many things, you have found.  He is different from other men you know, by the breadth and vividness of his sympathies, by power of living as few other men can live, in Admiration, Hope and Love.