_I am the land of their fathers, In me the virtue stays; I will bring back my children After certain days. * * * * * Till I make plain the meaning Of all my thousand years-- Till I fill their hearts with knowledge, While I fill their eyes with tears._ No, nor yet, despite its healing potency in its own place, the same master craftsman's counsel to the whole restless, uneasy, sedentary brood among his countrymen: _Take of English earth as much As either hand may rightly clutch, In the taking of it breathe Prayer for all who lie beneath-- Lay that earth upon your heart, And your sickness shall depart! It shall mightily restrain Over busy hand and brain, Till thyself restored shall prove By what grace the heavens do move._ None of these good things are wholly good for me, here and now, because--because, for example, they recall a prophecy of Mrs. Oldcastle's, and the grounds upon which she based it. Who should know better than I, that if my life-long mental restlessness chances, when I am less well than usual, or darkness is upon me, to take the form of nostalgia, with clinging, pulling thoughts of England--never of the London I knew so well, but always of the rural England I knew so little, from actual personal experience, yet loved so well--who should know better than I (sinning against the light in the writing of this unpardonably involved sentence) that such restlessness, such nostalgia, are no more based upon reason than is a bilious headache. The philosopher should, and does, scorn such an itch of the mind, well knowing that were he foolish enough to let it affect his actions or guide his conduct he would straightway cease to be a philosopher, and become instead a sort of human shuttlecock, for ever tossing here and there, from pillar to post, under the unreasoning blows of that battledore which had been his mind. Nay, rather the strappado for me, at any time, than abandonment to foolishness so crass as this would be. Over and above all this I deliberately chose my 'way out,' and it is good. I am assured the life of this my hermitage is one better suited to the man I am to-day than any other life I could hope to lead elsewhere. The mere thought of such a fate as a return to the maelstrom of London journalism--is it not a terror to me, and a thing to chill the heart like ice? Here is peace all about me, at all events, and never a semblance of pretence or sham. And if I, my inner self, cannot find peace here, where peace so clearly is, what should it profit me to go seeking it where peace is not visible at all, and where all that is visible is turmoil, hurry, and fret?