s; but I will only tell you of one, which may
suffice to show what riches lie ever open to those who roam in solitude.

It was mid-April and the close of a cloudless day. I had been to the
Observatory hill at Greenwich to see the sun set over London, looking
for such a transfiguration of the grey city as should reveal its line of
warehouses lying along the horizon in a mist of splendour like the walls
of the New Jerusalem. So I had seen it before, marvellous and refined in
unearthly fire: but to-day, in a sadder mood, and hungering more deeply
for the vision, I looked out to the west in vain. For the wind had set
in from the east, and driven back upon the town a zone of iron-grey
smoke, ragged along its upper edge like a great water blown to spray,
but merging below with those gloomy and innumerable buildings. Upon this
the sun, which all day had ridden in a clear air, was slowly falling,
losing radiance with every minute, until as it approached that gloomy
spray it was luminous no more, but a dull red orb whose light, like a
flame withdrawn into the consumed heart of coals, glows for awhile
beneath a gathering film of grey. In a few minutes it descended, as if
sadly and of resolution, into the murky sea, where for a moment its red
curves seemed to refine the smoke into translucency; but at last the
dun waves gathered upon it dark and voluminous, drowning it so deeply
that the clearer sky above was instantly robbed of the wonted
after-glow. Some pale reflection there was in the upper heaven, ensuring
a time of twilight, but no glory; and smitten with a congruous sadness,
I went down to the river. But there, pacing to and fro as if upon a
quarter-deck, with the water lapping upon the wall beneath, I lived one
of the happy hours of life, redeemed from disappointment, and carried
far into a magical world.

The flood tide, which had turned for more than an hour, was now racing
down wilful for the sea, though the breeze ruffling its surface seemed
to thwart and stay its eager course. And on the surface, indeed, chafed
and broken into innumerable ripples, the wind triumphed; but as one
looked westwards towards the city, it was clear that the sullen strength
of stream and tide had the mastery. For over the broad curving reach,
lit like white unburnished silver with the reflection of the pallid sky,
there glided forward a line of barges each with every red sail set, and
as silent as if they sallied from a besieged city. One by