wollen with rain and turbid, and
plucked steadily at the withies. To-day the stream, which is generally
full of life, was almost deserted. But it came into my head what an
allegory it made. Here through the unvisited meadows, with their huge
elms, runs this thin line of glittering vivid life; you hear, hidden in
dark leaves, the plash of oars, the grunt of rowlocks, and the chatter
of holiday folk, to whom the river-banks are but a picture through
which they pass, and who know nothing of the quiet fields that surround
them. That, I thought, following a train of reflection, is like life
itself, moving in its bright, familiar channel, so unaware of the broad
tracts of mystery that hem it in. May there not be presences, unseen,
who look down wondering--as I look to-day through my screen of leafy
boughs--on the busy-peopled stream that runs so merrily between its
scarped banks of clay? I know not; yet it seems as though it might be
so.

Beneath the weir, with its fragrant, weedy scent, where the green river
plunges and whitens through the sluices, lies a deep pool, haunted by
generations of schoolboys, who wander, flannelled and straw-hatted, up
through the warm meadows to bathe. In such sweet memories I have my
part, when one went riverwards with some chosen friend, speaking with
the cheerful frankness of boyhood of all our small concerns, and all we
meant to do; and then the cool grass under the naked feet, the
delicious recoil of the fresh, tingling stream, and the quiet stroll
back into the ordered life so full of simple happiness.

"Ah! happy fields, ah! pleasing shade,
Ah! fields beloved in vain!"

sang the sad poet of Eton--but not in vain, I think, for these old
beautiful memories are not sad; the good days are over and gone, and
they cannot be renewed; but they are like a sweet spring of youth,
whose waters fail not, in which a tired soul may bathe and be clean
again. They may bring back

"The times when I remember to have been
Joyful, and free from blame."

To be pensive, not sentimental, is the joy of later life. The thought
of the sweet things that have had an end, of life lived out and
irrevocable, is not a despairing thought, unless it is indulged with an
unavailing regret. It is rather to me a sign that, whatever we may be
or become, we are surrounded with the same quiet beauty and peace, if
we will but stretch out our hands and open our hearts to it. To grow
old patiently and b