; I went by silent,
solitary places where the springs soak out of the moorland, while I
pondered over the bewildering ways of the world. The life, the ideals
of the great poet, set in the splendid framework of the great hills,
seemed so majestic and admirable a thing. But the visible results--the
humming of silly strangers round his sacred solitudes, the
contaminating influence of commercial exploitation--made one
fruitlessly and hopelessly melancholy.

But even so the hills were silent; the sun went down in a great glory
of golden haze among the shadowy ridges. The valleys lay out at my
feet, the rolling woodland, the dark fells. There fell a mood of
strange yearning upon me, a yearning for the peaceful secret that, as
the orange sunset slowly waned, the great hills seemed to guard and
hold. What was it that was going on there, what solemn pageant, what
sweet mystery, that I could only desire to behold and apprehend? I
know not! I only know that if I could discern it, if I could tell it,
the world would stand to listen; its littleness, its meanness, would
fade in that august light; the peace of God would go swiftly and
secretly abroad.

XXV

Dorsetshire

I am travelling just now, and am this week at _Dorchester_, in the
company of my oldest and best friend. We like the same things; and I
can be silent if I will, while I can also say anything, however
whimsical, that comes into my mind; there are few things better than
that in the world, and I count the precious hours very gratefully;
_appono lucro_.

Dorsetshire gives me the feeling of being a very old country. The big
downs seem like the bases of great rocky hills which have through long
ages been smoothed and worn away, softened and mellowed, the rocks,
grain by grain, carried downwards into the flat alluvial meadowlands
beneath. In these rich pastures, all intersected with clear streams,
runnels and water-courses, full at this season of rich water-plants,
the cattle graze peacefully. The downs have been ploughed and sown up
to the sky-line. Then there are fine tracts of heather and pines in
places. And then, too, there is a sense of old humanity, of ancient
wars about the land. There are great camps and earthworks everywhere,
with ramparts and ditches, both British and Roman. The wolds from
which the sea is visible are thickly covered with barrows, each holding
the mouldering bones of some forgotten chieftain, laid to rest, how
many cent