And so it is with a heightened relish for the serener simplicities of life, that I return to my quiet rooms, my old trees, my carelessly ordered garden, as a sailor floats into the calm waters of the well-known haven out of the plunge and surf of the sea.  There is no strain here to torment me, no waste to afflict me.  I do not have to spend reluctant hours in enjoyments which I do not enjoy; I am not overshadowed by the sense of engagements which I am bound to keep.  Moreover, I can return to the beloved work which is unwillingly suspended in the bustle of town.  I do not know why it is that I have so deep a sense of the value of time, when what I do matters so little to any one.  But at least I have here the sense of doing work that may conceivably minister something to the service of others, while in town I have the sense of spending hours in occupations that cannot in any way benefit others, while they are certainly no satisfaction to myself,

         “In hoc portu quiescit
    Si quis aquas timet inquietas,”

says the wistful poet; and the tossing on the waves of the world thus gives me the tonic sense of contrast to my peaceful life which it would otherwise lack.  It is the sail and vinegar of the banquet, lending a brisk and wholesome savour to what might otherwise tend to become vapid and dull.

XIV

I have just finished a book and despatched it to the press.  It is rather a dreary moment that!  At first one has a sense of relief at having finished a task and set down a burden, but that elation lasts only for a day or two, and then one begins to miss one’s true and faithful companion.  This particular book has been in a special sense a companion to me, because it has been a book out of my own mind and heart, not a book undertaken for the sake of diffusing useful information, but a book of which I conceived the idea, planned the structure, and filled up the detail.  It has almost assumed a personality.  It has hardly been absent from my thoughts for the last six months.  It has darted into my mind when I awoke; it has stood looking over my shoulder as I read, pointing with airy finger at the lines, “There is a thought for you; here is an excellent illustration of that point you could not make clear.”  It has walked with me as close or closer than my shadow, until it has become a real thing, a being, a friend, like myself but yet not quite myself.

And then my book, as I read it through for the last time, is all full of gentle and tender associations.  This chapter brings back to me a day of fierce wind and blustering rain, when I walked by sodden roads and whistling hedges in my oldest clothes, till they hung heavily about me and creaked as I moved; the thought of the chapter came to me, I remember, when I decided that I had been far enough for health and even for glory, and when I fled back before the hooligan wind; then followed a long, quiet, firelit evening