I dream that a pipe smoked on that same hillside, under the same glowing sky, would taste as it then did, or bring me the same solace?  Would the turf be so soft beneath me?  Would the great elm-branches temper so delightfully the noontide rays beating upon them?  And, when the hour of rest was over, should I spring to my feet as then I did, eager to put forth my strength again?  No, no; what I remember is just one moment of my earlier life, linked by accident with that picture of the Suffolk landscape.  The place no longer exists; it never existed save for me.  For it is the mind which creates the world about us, and, even though we stand side by side in the same meadow, my eyes will never see what is beheld by yours, my heart will never stir to the emotions with which yours is touched.

XI.

I awoke a little after four o’clock.  There was sunlight upon the blind, that pure gold of the earliest beam which always makes me think of Dante’s angels.  I had slept unusually well, without a dream, and felt the blessing of rest through all my frame; my head was clear, my pulse beat temperately.  And, when I had lain thus for a few minutes, asking myself what book I should reach from the shelf that hangs near my pillow, there came upon me a desire to rise and go forth into the early morning.  On the moment I bestirred myself.  The drawing up of the blind, the opening of the window, only increased my zeal, and I was soon in the garden, then out in the road, walking light-heartedly I cared not whither.

How long is it since I went forth at the hour of summer sunrise?  It is one of the greatest pleasures, physical and mental, that any man in moderate health can grant himself; yet hardly once in a year do mood and circumstance combine to put it within one’s reach.  The habit of lying in bed hours after broad daylight is strange enough, if one thinks of it; a habit entirely evil; one of the most foolish changes made by modern system in the healthier life of the old time.  But that my energies are not equal to such great innovation, I would begin going to bed at sunset and rising with the beam of day; ten to one, it would vastly improve my health, and undoubtedly it would add to the pleasures of my existence.

When travelling, I have now and then watched the sunrise, and always with an exultation unlike anything produced in me by other aspects of nature.  I remember daybreak on the Mediterranean; the shapes of islands growing in hue after hue of tenderest light, until they floated amid a sea of glory.  And among the mountains—­that crowning height, one moment a cold pallor, the next soft-glowing under the touch of the rosy-fingered goddess.  These are the things I shall never see again; things, indeed, so perfect in memory that I should dread to blur them by a newer experience.  My senses are so much duller; they do not show me what once they did.