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.