Now, moss and flowers and little children took up all the
available space. ... How curiously out of the world Bourcelles was, to
be sure. Newspapers had no meaning any longer. Picture-papers and
smart weekly Reviews, so necessary and important in St. James's
Street, here seemed vulgar, almost impertinent--ridiculous even. Big
books, yes; but not pert, topical comments issued with an absurd
omnipotence upon things merely ephemeral. How the mind accumulated
rubbish in a city! It seemed incredible. He surely had climbed a wall
and dropped down into a world far bigger, though a world the 'city'
would deem insignificant and trivial. Yet only because it had less
detail probably! A loved verse flashed to him across the years:--
'O to dream, O to awake and wander
There, and with delight to take and render,
Through the trance of silence,
Quiet breath!
Lo! for there among the flowers and grasses,
Only the mightier movement sounds and passes;
Only winds and rivers,
Life and death.'
Bourcelles was important as London, yes, while simple as the nursery.
The same big questions of life and death, of battle, duty, love, ruled
the peaceful inhabitants. Only the noisy shouting, the clatter of
superfluous chattering and feverish striving had dropped away.
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