own tiling--all of them
showing signs of neglect and fallen fortunes.

But the ruined Grange, with a moat round it full of willows and big
water-plants, approached by a pretty bridge with ruinous parapets, had
the perfect quality of beauty. Yet all the associations that it aroused
were sad ones. It spoke of an old and prosperous family life, full of
simple happiness, brought to an end of desertion and desolation. It
seemed to say, like the Psalmist, "I see that all things come to an
end." Just opposite was a new and comfortable farm-house, the only
prosperous house in the village, with a trim lawn, and big barns
covered with corrugated iron roofing. Everything about it spoke of
comfort and security. Yet the only appeal that it made to the spirit
was that one wished it out of sight, while the ruined Grange touched
the heart with yearning and pathos, and even with a far-off and
beautiful hope. The transfiguring hand of time was laid gently upon it,
and there was not a single detail of the scene which was not filled
with a haunting sense of delight and sweetness.

It was just at sunset that I saw it; and as the sun went down and the
colour began to ebb out of bush and wall, the sense of its beauty and
grace became every instant more and more acute. A long train of rooks,
flying quietly homeward, drifted across the rose-flushed clouds.
Everything alike spoke of peace, of a quiet ending, of closed eyes and
weary hearts at rest. And yet the sense was not a joyful one, for it
was all overshadowed by a consciousness of the unattainable. What
increased the mystery was that the very thought that it could not be
attained, the yearning for the impossible, was what seemed to lend the
deepest sense of beauty to the scene. Who can interpret these things?
Who can show why it is that the sense of beauty, that deep hunger of
the heart, is built up on the fact that the dream cannot be realised?
Yet so it is. The sense of beauty, whatever it may be, seems to depend
upon the fact that the soul there catches a glimpse of something that
waits to bless it--and upon which it cannot lay its hand; or is aware
that if it does for a moment apprehend it, yet that a moment later it
will be dragged rudely back into a different region. The sense of
beauty is then of its nature accompanied by sadness; it is essentially
evanescent. A beautiful thing with which we grow familiar stands often
before us dumb and inarticulate, with no appeal to the spirit. T