night crept gently into the hollows of the hills, which now were
coloured the deepest, richest green. A little lighthouse began to

shine. In the perfect calm that had fallen, I heard breakers
murmuring softly upon the beach.

At sunrise we entered the port of Brindisi.
IV

The characteristicmotive of English poetry is love of nature,
especially of nature as seen in the English rural landscape. From

the "Cuckoo Song" of our language in its beginnings to the perfect
loveliness of Tennyson's best verse, this note is ever sounding. It

is persistent even amid the triumph of the drama. Take away from
Shakespeare all his bits of natural description, all his casual

allusions to the life and aspects of the country, and what a loss
were there! The reign of the iambic couplet confined, but could not

suppress, this native music; Pope notwithstanding, there came the
"Ode to Evening" and that "Elegy" which, unsurpassed for beauty of

thought and nobility of utterance in all the treasury of our lyrics,
remains perhaps the most essentially" target="_blank" title="ad.本质上，基本上">essentially English poem ever written.

This attribute of our national mind availed even to give rise to an
English school of painting. It came late; that it ever came at all

is remarkable enough. A people apparently less apt for that kind of
achievement never existed. So profound is the English joy in meadow

and stream and hill, that, unsatisfied at last with vocal
expression, it took up the brush, the pencil, the etching tool, and

created a new form of art. The National Gallery represents only in
a very imperfect way the richness and variety of our landscape work.

Were it possible to collect, and suitably to display, the very best
of such work in every vehicle, I know not which would be the

stronger emotion in an English heart, pride or rapture.
One obvious reason for the long neglect of Turner lies in the fact

that his genius does not seem to be truly English. Turner's
landscape, even when it presents familiar scenes, does not show them

in the familiar light. Neither the artist nor the intelligent
layman is satisfied. He gives us gloriousvisions; we admit the

glory--but we miss something which we deem essential. I doubt
whether Turner tasted rural England; I doubt whether the spirit of

English poetry was in him; I doubt whether the essential
significance of the common things which we call beautiful was

revealed to his soul. Such doubt does not affect his greatness as a
poet in colour and in form, but I suspect that it has always been

the cause why England could not love him. If any man whom I knew to
be a man of brains confessed to me that he preferred Birket Foster,

I should smile--but I should understand.
V

A long time since I wrote in this book. In September I caught a
cold, which meant three weeks' illness.

I have not been suffering; merely feverish and weak and unable to
use my mind for anything but a daily hour or two of the lightest

reading. The weather has not favoured my recovery, wet winds often
blowing, and not much sun. Lying in bed, I have watched the sky,

studied the clouds, which--so long as they are clouds indeed, and
not a mere waste of grey vapour--always have their beauty.

Inability to read has always been my horror; once, a trouble of the
eyes all but drove me mad with fear of blindness; but I find that in

my present circumstances, in my own still house, with no intrusion
to be dreaded, with no task or care to worry me, I can fleet the

time not unpleasantly even without help of books. Reverie, unknown
to me in the days of bondage, has brought me solace; I hope it has a

little advanced me in wisdom.
For not, surely, by deliberate effort of thought does a man grow

wise. The truths of life are not discovered by us. At moments
unforeseen, some gracious influence descends upon the soul, touching

it to an emotion which, we know not how, the mind transmutes into
thought. This can happen only in a calm of the senses, a surrender

of the whole being to passionless contemplation. I understand, now,
the intellectual" target="_blank" title="n.知识分子">intellectual mood of the quietist.

Of course my good housekeeper has tended me perfectly, with the
minimum of needless talk. Wonderful woman!

If the evidence of a well-spent life is necessarily seen in "honour,
love, obedience, troops of friends," mine, it is clear, has fallen

short of a moderate ideal. Friends I have had, and have; but very
few. Honour and obedience--why, by a stretch, Mrs. M- may perchance

represent these blessings. As for love--?
Let me tell myself the truth. Do I really believe that at any time

of my life I have been the kind of man who merits affection? I
think not. I have always been much too self-absorbed; too critical

of all about me; too unreasonably proud. Such men as I live and die
alone, however much in appearance accompanied. I do not repine at

it; nay, lying day after day in solitude and silence, I have felt
glad that it was so. At least I give no one trouble, and that is

much. Most solemnly do I hope that in the latter days no long
illness awaits me. May I pass quickly from this life of quiet

enjoyment to the final peace. So shall no one think of me with
pained sympathy or with weariness. One--two--even three may

possibly feel regret, come the end how it may, but I do not flatter
myself that to them I am more than an object of kindly thought at

long intervals. It is enough; it signifies that I have not erred
wholly. And when I think that my daily life testifies to an act of

kindness such as I could never have dreamt of meriting from the man
who performed it, may I not be much more than content?

VI
How I envy those who become prudent without thwackings of

experience! Such men seem to be not uncommon. I don't mean cold-
blooded calculators of profit and loss in life's possibilities; nor

yet the plodding dull, who never have imagination enough to quit the
beaten track of security; but bright-witted and large-hearted

fellows who seem always to be led by common sense, who go steadily
from stage to stage of life, doing the right, the prudent things,

guilty of no vagaries, winning respect by natural progress, seldom
needing aid themselves, often helpful to others, and, through all,

good-tempered, deliberate, happy. How I envy them!
For of myself it might be said that whatever folly is possible to a

moneyless man, that folly I have at one time or another committed.
Within my nature there seemed to be no faculty of rational self-

guidance. Boy and man, I blundered into every ditch and bog which
lay within sight of my way. Never did silly mortal reap such

harvest of experience; never had any one so many bruises to show for
it. Thwack, thwack! No sooner had I recovered from one sound

drubbing than I put myself in the way of another. "Unpractical" I
was called by those who spoke mildly; "idiot"--I am sure--by many a

ruder tongue. And idiot I see myself, whenever I glance back over
the long, devious road. Something, obviously, I lacked from the

beginning, some balancing principle granted to most men in one or
another degree. I had brains, but they were no help to me in the

common circumstances of life. But for the good fortune which
plucked me out of my mazes and set me in paradise, I should no doubt

have blundered on to the end. The last thwack of experience would
have laid me low just when I was becoming really a prudent man.

VII
This morning's sunshine faded amid slow-gathering clouds, but

something of its light seems still to linger in the air, and to
touch the rain which is falling softly. I hear a pattering upon the

still leafage of the garden; it is a sound which lulls, and tunes
the mind to calm thoughtfulness.

I have a letter to-day from my old friend in Germany, E. B. For
many and many a year these letters have made a pleasant incident in

my life; more than that, they have often brought me help and
comfort. It must be a rare thing for friendly correspondence to go

on during the greater part of a lifetime between men of different
nationalities who see each other not twice in two decades. We were

young men when we first met in London, poor, struggling, full of
hopes and ideals; now we look back upon those far memories from the

autumn of life. B. writes to-day in a vein of quiet contentment,
which does me good. He quotes Goethe: "Was man in der Jugend

begehrt hat man im Alter die Fulle."
These words of Goethe's were once a hope to me; later, they made me

shake my head incredulously; now I smile to think how true they have
proved in my own case. But what, exactly, do they mean? Are they

merely an expression of the optimistic spirit? If so, optimism has
to content itself with rather doubtful generalities. Can it truly

be said that most men find the wishes of their youth satisfied in
later life? Ten years ago, I should have utterly denied it, and