Damaris turned to the left, across the
single-arch stone bridge spanning the Arne, and drove on up the long
winding ascent from the valley to the moorland and fir plantations which
range inland behind Stourmouth. This constituted the goal of her journey,
for once the high-lying plateau reached, leagues of country open out far
as the eye carries to the fine, bare outline of the Wiltshire downs.
She checked the horse, letting it walk, while she took stock of her
surroundings.
It may be asserted that there are two ways of holding converse with
Nature. The one is egotistic and sentimental, an imposing of personal
tastes and emotions which betrays the latent categoric belief that the
existence of external things is limited to man's apprehension of them--a
vilely conceited if not actually blasphemous doctrine! The other is that
of the seeker and the seer, who, approaching in all reverence, asks no
more than leave to listen to the voice of external things--recognizing
their independent existence, knowing them to be as real as he is, as
wonderful, in their own order as permanent, possibly as potent even for
good and evil as himself.
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