the reeds, the trees, the long line of wooded hills, the swans and the boats, if he did not understand what the Thames is to an Englishman, I should despair of him. If I was interested in a young couple who were hesitating on the brink of matrimony, and I wished to push them into it, I would invite them to take tea with me on the lawn of the Compleat Angler, and when the sun dropped low and the shadows of the trees lengthened and the air grew heavy with the scent of the roses, I would leave them together for an hour, and if in that hour the man had not proposed I would consider him a base deceiver, a heartless wretch incapable of sentiment. In the late afternoon, when the bells of the church were ringing for evening service, I walked up the High Street, in which the lads of the village and the lasses all in white were abroad, and looked at Marlow's sole antiquarian relic--the stocks, which stand in an enclosure of turf and trees and flower-beds. I continued my pilgrimage to Shelley's house in West Street, and then on over the wooden bridge of old grey wood to the Lock. The sun had set and the west was all opal with the dying light when I came back to the lawn of the Compleat Angler. The launch that had lain the afternoon through by the steps was gone, with its load of merry people, and the motor cars were all off on their return journey to London. Only the people staying in the hotel remained. It was dinner-time, but I was loth to leave the open air, for the hush of the evening had fallen. I could hear faintly the sound of a hymn being sung in the church, and that sentimentality, which is not religious feeling, but which is akin to it, had fallen upon me. I was at peace with all mankind. I forgave the architect who designed Marlow Church tower for the triviality of his Gothic; I had no rancour against the tailor who took three weeks to make me three white evening waistcoats; I could think kindly of the people who send me insufficiently stamped letters from abroad, and I could remember that even the income-tax collector is a fellow-man. Had there been anyone by to whom I could recite poetry I would have been prepared to quote Herbert to my purpose, but the only companionable soul available at the moment was a friendly Irish terrier, and terriers have no soul for verse.