oy, are things that cannot be told, cannot
be translated into words: deep and gracious mysteries, rays of light,
delicate sounds.

But I will keep out of my book all the things, so far as I can, which
bring me mere trouble and heaviness; cares and anxieties and bodily
pains and dreariness and unkind thoughts and anger, and all
uncleanness. I cannot tell why our life should be so sadly bound up
with these matters; the only comfort is that even out of this dark and
heavy soil beautiful flowers sometimes spring. For instance, the
pressure of a care, an anxiety, a bodily pain, has sometimes brought
with it a perception which I have lacked when I have been bold and
joyful and robust. A fit of anger too, by clearing away little clouds
of mistrust and suspicion, has more than once given me a friendship
that endures and blesses me.

But beauty, innocent beauty of thought, of sound, of sight, seems to me
to be perhaps the most precious thing in the world, and to hold within
it a hope which stretches away even beyond the grave. Out of silence
and nothingness we arise; we have our short space of sight and hearing;
and then into the silence we depart. But in that interval we are
surrounded by much joy. Sometimes the path is hard and lonely, and we
stumble in miry ways; but sometimes our way is through fields and
thickets, and the valley is full of sunset light. If we could be more
calm and quiet, less anxious about the impression we produce, more
quick to welcome what is glad and sweet, more simple, more contented,
what a gain would be there! I wonder more and more every day that I
live that we do not value better the thought of these calmer things,
because the least effort to reach them seems to pull down about us a
whole cluster of wholesome fruits, grapes of Eschol, apples of
Paradise. We are kept back, it seems to me, by a kind of silly fear of
ridicule, from speaking more sincerely and instantly of these delights.

I read the _Life_ of a great artist the other day who received a title
of honour from the State. I do not think he cared much for the title
itself, but he did care very much for the generous praise of his
friends that the little piece of honour called forth. I will not quote
his exact words, but he said in effect that he wondered why friends
should think it necessary to wait for such an occasion to indulge in
the noble pleasure of praising, and why they should not rather have a
day in the year when the