Well, I have _fait une histoire_, suggested mainly by the masterpieces that I love, and without too much regard for those that happen to be loved by other people. And now that it is done, I think of it sadly enough. It should have been so beautiful. When I see an old church, like the priory church at Cartmel, standing grey and solemn in the mist above the houses, or hear an old song, like 'Summer is icumen in,' or see a browned old picture, like Poussin's 'Bergers d'Arcadie,' I feel that these things have meant more to man than battles. These are his dreams and his ideals, resting from age to age, long after the din of fighting has died and been forgotten, recorded each in its own way, in stone, in melody, in colour, and in the tales also that, changing continually, have 'held children from play and old men from the chimney-corner,' the dreams lie hid. What a tapestry they should have made. For the story of this art, or indeed of any art, is the story of man. Looking back through the years, as I sit here and close my eyes against the sunlight, I see the hard men and fierce women of the Sagas living out their lives in the cold and vigorous north--Pippin, the grandfather of Charlemagne, sticking his sword indifferently through the devil, Beaumains and his scornful lady riding through the green wood. In the dungeon of the tower sits Aucassin sorrowing for Nicolete his so sweet friend. Among the orange-trees on the Italian slope the gold-haired Fiammetta watches for her lover. With battered armour and ascetic face Don Quixote, upright in his saddle, rides on the bare roads of Spain, dreaming of Dulcinea del Toboso. Gil Blas swindles his way through life and comes out top as an honest rascal will. Clarissa sits in her chamber blotting with tears her interminable correspondence. Tom Jones draws blood from many meaner noses. My Uncle Toby looks, not in the white, for the mote in the Widow Wadman's eye. Mrs. Bennet begs her husband, to 'come and make Lizzy marry Mr. Collins.' Old Goriot pawns his plate and moves to cheaper and yet cheaper rooms to keep his daughters in their luxury. Raphael, nearing death, watches the relentless shrinking of the morsel of shagreen. There falls the House of Usher. There floats the white face of Marie Roget down the waters of the Seine. Quasimodo leers through the rosace; Mateo Falcone feels the earth with the butt of his gun and finds it not too hard for the digging of a child's grave; Clarimonde throws her passionate regard across the cathedral to the young novice about to take his vows; and, with a clatter of hoofs, the musketeers ride off for the reputation of the Queen of France. A tapestry indeed.