Chapter III
Along the Road
I
Since I turned the key on my study I have almost forgotten the familiar
titles on which my eye rested whenever I took a survey of my
book-shelves. Those friends stanch and true, with whom I have held
such royal fellowship when skies were chill and winds were cold, will
not forget me, nor shall I become unfaithful to them. I have gone
abroad that I may return later with renewed zest and deeper insight to
my old companionships. Books and nature are never inimical; they
mutually speak for and interpret each other; and only he who stands
where their double light falls sees things in true perspective and in
right relations.
The road along whose winding course I have been making a delightful
pilgrimage to-day has the double charm of natural beauty and of human
association; it is old, as age is reckoned in this new world; it has
grown hard under the tread of sleeping generations, and the great
figures of history have passed over it in their journeys between the
two great cities which mark its limits. In the earlier days it was the
king's highway, and along its up-hill and down-dale course the
battalions of royal troops marched and counter-marched to the call of
bugles that have gone silent these hundred years and more. It is a
road of varied fortunes, like many of those who have passed over it; it
is sometimes rich in all manner of priceless possessions, and again it
is barren, poverty-stricken, and desolate.
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