e's
chemistry. The thwarting of our cherished plans is beneficial, because
our plans are often mere routine, born not of wisdom, but of inertness.
In our endless treadmill of activity, in our ceaseless rumination, we
are, as a fact, neither acting nor thinking; and life, secretly at a
standstill, ceases to produce any good. There was no reason for taking
that express and getting back two or three hours sooner to my house: no
one required me, nothing needed doing. Yet, unless I had lost that train
I should not have dreamed of taking that walk, of making that little
journey of discovery, in a delightful unknown place.

There is another source of good hidden in disappointment. For it is
disappointment rather than age (age getting the credit for what it
merely witnesses) which teaches us to work into life's scheme certain
facts, frequently difficult of acceptance; trying to make them, as all
reality should be, causes of strength rather than of weakness. Painful
facts? Or rather, perhaps, only painful contradictions to certain
pleasant delusions, founded on nothing save their pleasantness, and
taken for granted--who knows how long?--without proof and without
questioning. Facts concerning not merely success, love, personal
contact, but also one's own powers and possibilities for good, what the
world is able to receive at one's hands, as much as of what the world
can give to one.

But the knowledge which disappointment gives, to those wishing to learn
from it, has a higher usefulness than practical application. It
constitutes a view of life, a certain contemplative attitude which, in
its active resignation, in its domination of reality by intelligent
acquiescence, gives continuity, peace, and dignity. And here my allegory
finds its completion. For what compensated me after my lost train and
all my worry and vexation of spirit? Nothing to put in my pocket or
swell my luggage, not even a kingdom, such as made up for the loss of
poor Saul's asses; but an impression of sunset freshness and sweetness
among ripening corn and delicate leaves, and a view, unexpected, solemn,
and charming, with those long-forgotten distant walls and towers which I
shall never reach, and which have beckoned to me from my childhood.

Such is the allegory, or morality, of the Lost Train.

THE HANGING GARDENS

VALEDICTORY

I am not alluding to those of Semiramis. Though, now I come to think of
it, this is the moment for protesting against on