EPILOGUE.
Was ich besitze, seh’ ich wie im Weiten,Und was verschwand, wird mir zu Wirklichkeiten.What I possess, I see far distant lying,And what I lost, grows real and undying.Goethe, Faust.
Was ich besitze, seh’ ich wie im Weiten,Und was verschwand, wird mir zu Wirklichkeiten.What I possess, I see far distant lying,And what I lost, grows real and undying.Goethe, Faust.
Was ich besitze, seh’ ich wie im Weiten,Und was verschwand, wird mir zu Wirklichkeiten.
Was ich besitze, seh’ ich wie im Weiten,
Und was verschwand, wird mir zu Wirklichkeiten.
What I possess, I see far distant lying,And what I lost, grows real and undying.Goethe, Faust.
What I possess, I see far distant lying,
And what I lost, grows real and undying.
Goethe, Faust.
In the hearts of most of us there is always a desire for something beyond experience. Hardly any of us but have thought, Some day I will go on a long voyage; but the years go by and still we have not sailed.
—Richard Jefferies, The Open Air.
ONCE more the spring, the sunshine, and the youth of the year. As much of contentment, perhaps, as the majority may find within the confines of brick and stone my house has yielded me throughout the long months of winter. Grateful I am for the comfort it has afforded—its warmth, its luxury, its cheer. Yet ever with the return of spring and the song of birds, the house becomes merely secondary to the grounds, the garden, and the charms of external nature.
Again I lounge on the grass-plot overlooking the river. Once more I watch the sparkle of the water and inhale the scent of the wild honeysuckle, sentient with the sweet breath of the summer. The bees hum, the wood-dove calls, the soothing roar of the rapids rises and falls. Again, through the morning haze, I note the pleasure craft idling on the breast of the river; while yonder, her painted canvas unfurled, a strange craft is slowly rounding a curve of the shore.
Did I say my ship had come? Alas! the wood-dove only murmured in his dream, and my ship sailed past to deposit her precious stores at the harbor of my more fortunate neighbor.
My ship was, after all, only one of the castles in Spain that we are always building—and “these are but my fantasies.”
Transcriber’s Notes:MIDI and MP3 files have been provided for both music examples. Click on the links to the right of “Listen” to hear the music.Whether this works depends on your browser. If you don't hear the music, you will probably find the music file in your downloads folder. ePub and Kindle readers don't currently support embedded music.Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected.Typographical errors were silently corrected.Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only when a predominant form was found in this book.