the majority of them, or indeed to any but one, for
a spontaneous kiss. There is nothing so encouraging
as the spectacle of self-sufficiency. And when
I think of the slim and lovely maidens, running the
woods all night to the note of Diana’s horn;
moving among the old oaks, as fancy-free as they;
things of the forest and the starlight, not touched
by the commotion of man’s hot and turbid life—although
there are plenty other ideals that I should prefer—I
find my heart beat at the thought of this one.
’Tis to fail in life, but to fail with what
a grace! That is not lost which is not regretted.
And where—here slips out the male—where
would be much of the glory of inspiring love, if there
were no contempt to overcome?
ON THE WILLEBROEK CANAL
Next morning, when we set forth on the Willebroek
Canal, the rain began heavy and chill. The water
of the canal stood at about the drinking temperature
of tea; and under this cold aspersion, the surface
was covered with steam. The exhilaration of departure,
and the easy motion of the boats under each stroke
of the paddles, supported us through this misfortune
while it lasted; and when the cloud passed and the
sun came out again, our spirits went up above the
range of stay-at-home humours. A good breeze
rustled and shivered in the rows of trees that bordered
the canal. The leaves flickered in and out of
the light in tumultuous masses. It seemed sailing
weather to eye and ear; but down between the banks,
the wind reached us only in faint and desultory puffs.
There was hardly enough to steer by. Progress
was intermittent and unsatisfactory. A jocular
person, of marine antecedents, hailed us from the
tow-path with a ‘C’est vite, mais c’est
long.’
The canal was busy enough. Every now and then
we met or overtook a long string of boats, with great
green tillers; high sterns with a window on either
side of the rudder, and perhaps a jug or a flower-pot
in one of the windows; a dinghy following behind; a
woman busied about the day’s dinner, and a handful
of children. These barges were all tied one
behind the other with tow ropes, to the number of
twenty-five or thirty; and the line was headed and
kept in motion by a steamer of strange construction.
It had neither paddle-wheel nor screw; but by some
gear not rightly comprehensible to the unmechanical
mind, it fetched up over its bow a small bright chain
which lay along the bottom of the canal, and paying
it out again over the stern, dragged itself forward,
link by link, with its whole retinue of loaded skows.
Until one had found out the key to the enigma, there
was something solemn and uncomfortable in the progress
of one of these trains, as it moved gently along the
water with nothing to mark its advance but an eddy
alongside dying away into the wake.
