worlds, live in this mood of meditationthe mother of all the glorious works of art and literature which inspire and sustain us. These hours in which no activity breaks the current of thought are the creative periods; hours solemn with that kinship with Deity which comes when the eye discerns the path of the divine thought, or sees with prophetic vision the image of that beauty with which all created things are suffused. The deepest life is as silent as the soil out of which the glory of summer bursts; all noble activities issue from it, and no great work is ever done save by those who have lived in the repose which precedes creation.

with drifting snow, which a fierce and wilful wind carried hither and thither in whirling clouds like vagrant wraiths, I knew what Emerson meant when he wrote that fine line about the "tumultuous privacy of storm." Wind and snow bar all the gates to-day with invisible bolts; the village is as remote and detached as if it were on another continent. Across all the avenues of communication is written "no thoroughfare; " the road through the woods will remain for hours without a disturbing wheel, and with no traveller save the shy wild dwellers of the place,

glad of this sudden barricade against human intrusion. On the hearth, as if answering the shouts of the riotous wind down the chimney, the fire burns with unwonted cheeriness.

On such a morning, when nature takes matters in her own hands and locks the doors of ingress and egress without so much as saying "by your leave," one settles down to a day of meditation and reading with peculiar and unqualified satisfaction. No hand will let the knocker fall, with resounding clangour, at the very moment when you have completely lost yourself in some beautiful country of the

soul

some distant island where Prospero still holds his unburied rod and reads in his unsunken books; some valley of Avalon,

where the apple blossoms still rain the sweetness of perennial summer on the mailed hand of chivalry. Best of all, no disquieting voice of duty will call persistently

from some remote quarter; you have been bolted and

your

barred against the intrusion even of conscience. So lodged, one may give

himself up to the solitude of the day

without any other repose and delight.

feeling than that of Happy is he to whom

life offers the gift of solitude; that gift which makes so many other gifts available! Happy is he to whom with books and the love of meditation there is also given the repose, the quiet, the isolation which are the very breath of the life of thought! We are swift to praise heroism and selfdenial when these take on striking forms and appeal to the eye or the imagination; but how infrequent is our recognition of that noble resignation which takes the form of quiet acceptance of limitations which separate one from the work of his heart and divide him from the joy of his life!

Happy are they, however, to whom solitude brings its deep and satisfying joy the joy of fellowship with great souls, of companionship with nature in that sub