here he was
distracted, bewildered, agitated. But in this quiet country the veil
seemed thin enough. The trees, the flowers, seemed somehow nearer to
God, who of very truth appeared to walk as of old in the garden, in the
cool of the day.

XXIV

The Romance of Life--The Renewal of Youth--Youth

There were some days when the whole air of the place, the houses, the
fields, the gardens, even the very people that Hugh met in the streets,
seemed to be full of romance and poetry. There was no particular
quality about the days themselves, that Hugh could ever divine, that
produced this impression. Perhaps such moods came oftener and more
poignantly when the air was cool and fresh, when the temperate sun
filled his low rooms from end to end, lay serene upon the pastures, or
danced in the ripples of the stream. But the mood came just as
inevitably on dull days, when the sky was roofed with high grey clouds,
or even on raw days of winter, when fitful gusts whirled round corners,
and when the spouts and cornices dripped with slow rains. In these
hours the whole world seemed possessed by some gracious and sweet
mystery; everything was in the secret, everything was included in the
eager and high-hearted conspiracy. It was all the same, on such days,
whether Hugh was alone or with company; if he was among friends or even
strangers, they seemed to look upon him, to speak, to move, with a
blithe significance; he seemed to intercept tender messages in a casual
glance, to experience the sense of a delighted goodwill, such as reigns
among a party of friends on an expedition of pleasure. This mood did
not produce in Hugh the sense of merriment or high spirits; it was not
an excited frame of mind; it was rather a feeling of widespread
tenderness, a sort of brotherly admiration. At such moments, the most
crabbed and peevish person seemed to be transfigured, to be acting a
delightful part for the pleasure of a spectator, and an inner
benevolence, a desire to contribute zest and amusement to the banquet
of life, seemed to underlie the most fractious gestures or irritable
speech. On such days, one seemed to have an affectionate understanding
with even slight acquaintances, an understanding which seemed to say,
"We are all comrades in heart, and nothing but circumstance and bodily
limitation prevents us from being comrades in life." Hugh used to
fancy that this mood was like an earnest of the bodiless joy, the free
compani