the wild and poignant issues of life are softened, and
the pulses beat thickly amid the blinding sweetness of the music. He who
has not heard the nightingale has not lived. Far off the sea called low
through the mist, and the long path of the moon ran toward the bright
horizon; the ships stole in shadow and shine over the glossy ripples,
and swung away to north and south till they faded in wreaths of delicate
darkness. Dominating the whole scene of beauty, there was the vast and
subtle mystery of the heath that awed the soul even when the rapture was
at its keenest. Time passed away, and on one savage night I read Thomas
Hardy's unparalleled description of the majestic waste in "The Return of
the Native." That superb piece of English is above praise--indeed
praise, as applied to it, is half an impertinence; it is great as
Shakespeare, great almost as Nature--one of the finest poems in our
language. As I read with awe the quiet inevitable sentences, the vision
of my own heath rose, and the memory filled me with a sudden joy.

I know that the hour of darkness ever dogs our delight, and the shadow
of approaching darkness and toil might affront me even now, if I were
ungrateful; but I live for the present only. Let grave persons talk
about the grand achievements and discoveries that have made this age or
that age illustrious; I hold that holidays are the noblest invention of
the human mind, and, if any philosopher wants to argue the matter, I
flee from his presence, and luxuriate on the yellow sands or amid the
keen kisses of the salty waves. I own that Newton's discoveries were
meritorious, and I willingly applaud Mr. George Stephenson, through
whose ingenuity we are now whisked to our places of rest with the
swiftness of an eagle's flight. Nevertheless I contend that holidays are
the crowning device of modern thought, and I hold that no thesis can be
so easily proven as mine. How did our grandfathers take holiday? Alas,
the luxury was reserved for the great lords who scoured over the
Continent, and for the pursy cits who crawled down to Brighthelmstone!
The ordinary Londoner was obliged to endure agonies on board a stuffy
Margate hoy, while the people in Northern towns never thought of taking
a holiday at all. The marvellous cures wrought by Doctor Ozone were not
then known, and the science of holiday-making was in its infancy. The
wisdom of our ancestors was decidedly at fault in this matter, and the
gout and dyspepsia f