will. This would be not only
fatal to my peace, it would make me despicable in my own eyes, which is
the worst of all calamities that man can suffer.

Such a distress of mind was natural; yet I think that behind it all my
thought was firm and clear. What I had proposed to do for twenty years
I must do, or attempt to do, if I would retain my self-respect. I
might become despicable to myself by failure in my task, but I should
be much more despicable by never trying to accomplish it. In that
half-hour of meditation the die was cast. I had come to my predestined
battlefield. I must here be triumphant or defeated; in any case I must
attempt the conflict.

The decision restored, as by a stroke of magic, all my good spirits. I
examined my two cottages again with an eye less critical, more kindly,
more urbane. I saw with how few touches they could be transformed into
a habitation suited to my needs. With the two main rooms thrown into
one I should have a spacious living-room; the two gardens would compose
an admirable lawn; roses should grow against the walls, warm-hued
creepers frame the upper windows; it should become a lodge in Eden.
Then there was the air, the view, the company of the silent mountains
and the singing stream. Here was my theatre, my orchestra, my
concert-room. The woman who was my guide took me into her own cottage
for a cup of tea, and I was struck with its homely air of comfort. An
oak dresser, covered with blue ware such as is common in these parts,
filled one wall; an oak chest of drawers another; there was a
broad-seated oak settle by the fire; all solid, of a good design, and
polished to a deep brown by use and industry. The floor was red brick;
flowers lined the windows; and everything was clean as hands could make
it. I saw my house furnished on the same plan, and it pleased me. A
recollection crossed my mind, curious and most fantastic at such a
time, of a certain room in one of the show-houses in London, furnished
entirely in the French style. I recalled the console tables of old
gilt, the brocaded couch, and the gilded chairs which no one dared to
sit upon; and I confess that I preferred this habitable cottage-room.
There was something satisfying in its plainness; a sense of something
honest and intimately right; a suggestion of solid worth and homely
ease. My spirits had already been restored by my decision; they were
now invigorated to the point of joy, for I saw the concrete