After that there was little said for a long time. Arthur sat gazing from the window at the flying scroll of country, the dear desirable green land, with its ancient parks, clear shallow streams, trim cottages, level lawns, and wealth of flowers--all so different from that majestic, half-barbaric vastness which he had left. The tears filled his eyes, as they have filled the eyes of many a returning exile. Why did men ever leave it, this land which in every detail was a finished picture, created by the art of centuries? Where else could they expect to find such "haunts of ancient peace," dreamy nooks, gray towers and spires, leisurely, modest happiness, infinite, calm security? And, as he looked, there came to him again the old thought that the only life worth living was one remote from cities. Had his father lived here, earning modest competence, how different the story! It was the city that had snared him, killed the best in him, infected him with its fierce, unnatural greed. O damnable, dreadful London! how many hast thou slain, thou Harlot of the Nations, with thy skirts full of blood! And yet men went on building new and even worse Londons, undeterred by past warnings--New York, with its roaring tides of greed and clang of gold; Chicago, with its naked barbarism, the pure seas evermore polluted, the fair landscapes blackened, the skies stained with pestilence. O! it was horrible! If he could but save his father from this--it might not yet be too late. And there sprang up in his mind that pathetic fallacy, so often asserted by religion, but so seldom true, that all suffering purifies; that from wounded pride and overthrown ambition there must needs come the nobler heart: whereas every one knows that suffering more often has its issue in bitter stoicism, and injured pride clamours for revenge, and there is no more deadly force than defeated ambition, which draws a new strength from rage. It was a hard problem for a youth of twenty-three to grapple: no wonder that he failed. But that desirable green land spoke its message all the same. "_Man walketh in a vain show and disquieteth himself in vain_"--so ran the message. Even Vickars had found that message true. He had beaten himself weary against the strong bastions of the world, and in vain. Had he also learned the difficult lesson that the most one man can do is to live his own life the best way he can, satisfied that nothing really perishes in the vast sum of things, content if he can add his insignificant unit of effort to a growing righteousness? Perhaps he had. Perhaps also that was the only real lesson life had to teach us. He was aroused from his reverie by the hand of Vickars on his shoulder. "My dear fellow," he said, "there's something else I have to say to you, something I find it very difficult to say." "About my father?" "No; I have told you all there is to tell. Believe me, I have kept nothing back." "What then?"