CHAPTER XXXII AN IDYL OF WANDERING N these spring days all manner of alluring invitations find their way into my study and by the suggestions which they bring with them make its walls narrow and dingy in spite of the glow which pleasant associations have cast upon them. When I sit at my writing table in the morning and carefully arrange the unwritten sheets which are to receive the work of the day, a playful breeze comes in at the window and wilfully scatters the spotless pages about the room as if to protest against work and seclusion in these radiant days when the heavens rain sweet influences and the earth gives back its bloom and fragrance. I think then of all manner of places where the earliest and tenderest beauty of summer abides; the imagination revolts against work and, like a child let loose from city squares, runs through meadows white with daisies and into bosky hollows where the ferns breathe out a delicious coolness. I cannot resist the impulse which nature yearly renews in this golden hour of her beauty, and so I sally forth to such refreshment and adventure as one may look for in the hey-day of springtime. Yesterday I waved my handkerchief with the throng who crowded the pier and sent their huzzas after the great steamer swinging slowly into the stream, bound for that old world of history and imagination which has such hold upon the most American of us all. I followed the little group whom my affection separated from the throng on the deck until I could distinguish their faces no more; and then, when sight failed, thought travelled fast upon their foaming wake, and travels with them still. I know what days of calm and nights of splendour, when the stars. hang luminous over the silent world of waters, will be theirs; I know with what eager gaze they will scan the low horizon line when the first indistinct outlines of another continent break its perfect symmetry; I hear with them the first confused murmur of that rich old-world life; I follow them through historic street to historic church and palace; I see the blossoming hedges and mark the low ripple of quiet rivers flowing seaward, the murmur of whose movement lends its music to so much English poetry; I catch a sudden glimpse of cloud-like peaks breaking the inaccessible solitude of the sky, and in a moment the whole landscape of that rich world sweeps into sight and invites me to join them in their wanderings. This season stirs one knows not what ancient instinct still in the very blood of our race, answering the first voices of the birds returning from their long journey, and the first outburst of life flowing back in the flood tide of advancing summer. The history of civilisation is an Odyssey of wandering. From the hour when |