As I leaned against a tree and watched Sinfi striding through the grass till she passed out of sight, the entire panorama of my life passed before me.

‘She has left me with a blessing after all,’ I said; ’my poor Sinfi has taught me the lesson that he who would fain be cured of the disease of a wasting sorrow must burn to ashes Memory.  He must flee Memory and never look back.’

VI

And did I flee Memory?  When I re-entered the bungalow next day it was my intention to leave it and Wales at once and for ever, and indeed to leave England at once—­perhaps for ever, in order to escape from the unmanning effect of the sorrowful brooding which I knew had become a habit.  ‘I will now,’ I said, ’try the nepenthe that all my friends in their letters are urging me to try—­I will travel.  Yes, I will go to Japan.  My late experiences should teach me that Ja’afar’s “Angel of Memory,” who refashioned for him his dead wife out of his own sorrow and tears, did him an ill service.  He who would fain be cured of the disease of a wasting sorrow should try to flee the “Angel of Memory,” and never look back.’

And so fixed was my mind upon travelling that I wrote to several of my friends, and told them of my intention.  But I need scarcely say that as I urged them to keep the matter secret it was talked about far and wide.  Indeed, as I afterwards found to my cost, there were paragraphs in the newspapers stating that the eccentric amateur painter and heir of one branch of the Aylwins had at last gone to Japan, and that as his deep interest in a certain charming beauty of an un-English type was proverbial, it was expected that he would return with a Japanese, or perhaps a Chinese wife.

But I did not go to Japan; and what prevented me?

My reason told me that what I had just seen near Beddgelert was an optical illusion.  I had become very learned on the subject of optical illusions ever since I had known Sinfi Lovell, and especially since I had seen that picture of Winnie in the water near Bettws y Coed, which I have described in an earlier chapter.  Every book I could get upon optical illusions I had read, and I was astonished to find how many instances are on record of illusions of a much more powerful kind than mine.

And yet I could not leave Snowdon.  The mountain’s very breath grew sweeter and sweeter of Winnie’s lips.  As I walked about the hills I found myself repeating over and over again one of the verses which Winnie used to sing to me as a child at Raxton.

Eryri fynyddig i mi,
Bro dawel y delyn yw,
Lle mae’r defaid a’r wyn,
Yn y mwswg a’r brwyn,
Am can inau’n esgyn i fyny,
A’r gareg yn ateb i fyny, i fyny,
O’r lle bu’r eryrod yn byw. [Footnote]

[Footnote: 

Mountain-wild Snowdon for me! 
Sweet silence there for the harp,
Where loiter the ewes and the lambs,
In the moss and the rushes,
Where one’s song goes sounding up
And the rocks re-echo it higher and higher
In the height where the eagles live.]