ain his soul when the dark days came, when the
garden should be bare and dishevelled, and a strange dying smell should
hang about the walks; and when perhaps his own soul should be sorrowful
even unto death?

XXXI

A Man of Science--Prophets--A Tranquil Faith--Trustfulness

The perception of one of the great truths of personality came upon Hugh
in a summer day which he had spent, according to his growing
inclination, almost alone. In the morning he had done some business,
some writing, and had read a little. It was a week when Cambridge was
almost wholly given up to festivity, and the little river that flowed
beneath his house echoed all day long to the wash of boats, the stroke
of oars, and the cheerful talk of happy people. The streets were full
of gaily-dressed persons hurrying to and fro. This background of brisk
life pleased Hugh exceedingly, so long as he was not compelled to take
any part in it, so long as he could pursue his own reveries. Part of
the joy was that he could peep at it from his secure retreat; it
inspirited him vaguely, setting, as it were, a cheerful descant to the
soft melody of his own thoughts. In the afternoon he went out
leisurely into the country; it was pleasant to leave the humming town,
so full of active life and merry gossip, and to find that in the
country everything was going forward as though there were no pressure,
no bustle anywhere. The solitary figures of men hoeing weeds in among
the growing wheat, and moving imperceptibly across the wide green
fields, pleased him. He wound away through comfortable villages, among
elms and orchards, choosing the byways rather than the high-roads, and
plunging deeper and deeper into country which it seemed that no one
ever visited except on rustic business. There was a gentle south wind
which rippled in the trees; the foliage had just begun to wear its late
burnished look, and the meadows were full of high-seeded grass, gilded
or silvered with buttercups and ox-eye daisies.

He stopped for a time to explore a little rustic church, that stood, in
a careless mouldering dignity, in the centre of a small village. Here,
with his gentle fondness for little omens, he became aware that some
good thing was being prepared for him, for in the nave of the church,
under the eaves, he noted no less than three swarms of bees, that had
made their nest under the timbers of the roof, and were just awakening
into summer activity. The drones we