"Far down through the trees I can see the sparkle of the waves--beyond, the broad plain of blue; and on the headland, a mile away, white foam is dashing. "It is the typical landscape of the South, and of spring, the landscape, with only differences in detail, of Theocritus or Vergil, or the Greek anthologists, those most delicate singers of nature and the South. From the beginning it has filled man with the same joy, the same yearning, the same despair. "In youth and happiness we _are_ the spring--the young green--the blossom--the plashing waves. Their life is ours and one with ours. "But in age and grief? There is no resentment, I think; no anger, as though a mourner resented the gayety around him; but, rather, a deep and melancholy wonder at the chasm that has now revealed itself between our life and nature. What does the breach mean?--the incurable dissonance and alienation? Are we greater than nature, or less? Is the opposition final, the prophecy of man's ultimate and hopeless defeat at the hands of nature?--or is it, in the Hegelian sense, the mere development of a necessary conflict, leading to a profounder and intenser unity? The old, old questions--stock possessions of the race, yet burned anew by life into the blood and brain of the individual. "I see Diana in the garden with her nurse. She has been running to and fro, playing with the dog, feeding the goat. Now I see her sitting still, her chin on her hands, looking out to sea. She seems to droop; but I am sure she is not tired. It is an attitude not very natural to a child, especially to a child so full of physical health and vigor; yet she often falls into it. "When I see it I am filled with dread. She knows nothing, yet the cloud seems to be upon her. Does she already ask herself questions--about her father--about this solitary life?