"
It has; it has. I shall not soon forget it. What a lot of kindness and
common human nature--childlike simplicity, if you will--there is in
people once you get them down together and persuade them that the things
they think serious are not serious at all.
III
THE OPEN ROAD
"To make space for wandering is it that the world was made so wide."
--GOETHE, _Wilhelm Meister_.
I love sometimes to have a day alone--a riotous day. Sometimes I do not
care to see even my best friends: but I give myself up to the full
enjoyment of the world around me. I go out of my door in the
morning--preferably a sunny morning, though any morning will do well
enough--and walk straight out into the world. I take with me the burden
of no duty or responsibility. I draw in the fresh air, odour-laden from
orchard and wood. I look about me as if everything were new--and behold
everything _is_ new. My barn, my oaks, my fences--I declare I never saw
them before. I have no preconceived impressions, or beliefs, or
opinions. My lane fence is the end of the known earth. I am a discoverer
of new fields among old ones. I see, feel, hear, smell, taste all these
wonderful things for the first time. I have no idea what discoveries I
shall make!
So I go down the lane, looking up and about me.
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