But there is the rustle of branches in the morning breeze; there is the music of a sunny shower against the window; there is the matin song of birds.  Several times lately I have lain wakeful when there sounded the first note of the earliest lark; it makes me almost glad of my restless nights.  The only trouble that touches me in these moments is the thought of my long life wasted amid the senseless noises of man’s world.  Year after year this spot has known the same tranquillity; with ever so little of good fortune, with ever so little wisdom, beyond what was granted me, I might have blessed my manhood with calm, might have made for myself in later life a long retrospect of bowered peace.  As it is, I enjoy with something of sadness, remembering that this melodious silence is but the prelude of that deeper stillness which waits to enfold us all.

XXIV.

Morning after morning, of late, I have taken my walk in the same direction, my purpose being to look at a plantation of young larches.  There is no lovelier colour on earth than that in which they are now clad; it seems to refresh as well as gladden my eyes, and its influence sinks deep into my heart.  Too soon it will change; already I think the first radiant verdure has begun to pass into summer’s soberness.  The larch has its moment of unmatched beauty—­and well for him whose chance permits him to enjoy it, spring after spring.

Could anything be more wonderful than the fact that here am I, day by day, not only at leisure to walk forth and gaze at the larches, but blessed with the tranquillity of mind needful for such enjoyment?  On any morning of spring sunshine, how many mortals find themselves so much at peace that they are able to give themselves wholly to delight in the glory of heaven and of earth?  Is it the case with one man in every fifty thousand?  Consider what extraordinary kindness of fate must tend upon one, that not a care, not a preoccupation, should interfere with his contemplative thought for five or six days successively!  So rooted in the human mind (and so reasonably rooted) is the belief in an Envious Power, that I ask myself whether I shall not have to pay, by some disaster, for this period of sacred calm.  For a week or so I have been one of a small number, chosen out of the whole human race by fate’s supreme benediction.  It may be that this comes to every one in turn; to most, it can only be once in a lifetime, and so briefly.  That my own lot seems so much better than that of ordinary men, sometimes makes me fearful.

XXV.

Walking in a favourite lane to-day, I found it covered with shed blossoms of the hawthorn.  Creamy white, fragrant even in ruin, lay scattered the glory of the May.  It told me that spring is over.

Have I enjoyed it as I should?  Since the day that brought me freedom, four times have I seen the year’s new birth, and always, as the violet yielded to the rose, I have known a fear that I had not sufficiently prized this boon of heaven whilst it was with me.  Many hours I have spent shut up among my books, when I might have been in the meadows.  Was the gain equivalent?  Doubtfully, diffidently, I hearken what the mind can plead.