I was myself haunted from a very early date by the sense of beauty and mystery, though not for many years could I give it a name; but I have found in my case that it originated as a rule in some minute effect of natural things. I have seen some of the wildest and most astounding natural prospects in Europe; I have climbed high rocky peaks and threaded mountain solitudes, but some overshadowing of horror and awe has robbed emotion of its most intimate joy; and I have always found myself more thrilled by some tranquil vignette—the moon rising through a forest glade, a red sunset between the boughs of pines, the crisping wave of some broken eddy, the “green-dense and dim-delicious” depth of a woodland pool, the weathered gables of an ancient manor, an orchard white with the snows of spring—than I have ever been by the sight of the most solemn mountain-head or the furious breakers of some uncontrolled tide. Two or three of these sacred sights I may venture to describe, taking them at random out of the treasure-house of memory; two belong to my schooldays. I was a pupil at a big suburban school; the house which we inhabited had once been the villa of a well-known statesman, and had large and dignified grounds, where with certain restrictions, we were allowed to ramble. They were bounded on one side by a high paling, inaccessible to small limbs, and a vague speculation as to what was behind the fence long dwelt with me. One day, however, I found that I could loose a portion of a broken paling, and looking through I saw a quiet place, the tail of a neglected shrubbery; the spot seemed quite unvisited; the laurels grew thickly about, and tall elms gave an austere gloom to the little glade; the ground was pathless, and thickly overgrown with periwinkles, but in the centre were three tiny grave-mounds, the graves, I have since reflected, of dogs, but which I at the time supposed to be the graves of children. I gazed with a singular sense of mystery, and strange dream-pictures rose instinctively in my mind, weaving themselves over the solitary and romantic spot. It is strange how often in dreams and gentle reveries I have visited the place. [Sidenote: THE ENCHANTED LAND]