A whole day's walk yesterday with no plan; just a long ramble of hour
after hour, entirely enjoyable. It ended at Topsham, where I sat on the
little churchyard terrace, and watched the evening tide come up the broad
estuary. I have a great liking for Topsham, and that churchyard,
overlooking what is not quite sea, yet more than river, is one of the
most restful spots I know. Of course the association with old Chaucer,
who speaks of Topsham sailors, helps my mood. I came home very tired;
but I am not yet decrepit, and for that I must be thankful.
The unspeakable blessedness of having a _home_! Much as my imagination
has dwelt upon it for thirty years, I never knew how deep and exquisite a
joy could lie in the assurance that one is _at home_ for ever. Again and
again I come back upon this thought; nothing but Death can oust me from
my abiding place. And Death I would fain learn to regard as a friend,
who will but intensify the peace I now relish.
When one is at home, how one's affections grow about everything in the
neighbourhood! I always thought with fondness of this corner of Devon,
but what was that compared with the love which now strengthens in me day
by day! Beginning with my house, every stick and stone of it is dear to
me as my heart's blood; I find myself laying an affectionate hand on the
door-post, giving a pat, as I go by, to the garden gate. Every tree and
shrub in the garden is my beloved friend; I touch them, when need is,
very tenderly, as though carelessness might pain, or roughness injure
them. If I pull up a weed in the walk, I look at it with a certain
sadness before throwing it away; it belongs to my home.
And all the country round about. These villages, how delightful are
their names to my ear! I find myself reading with interest all the local
news in the Exeter paper. Not that I care about the people; with barely
one or two exceptions, the people are nothing to me, and the less I see
of them the better I am pleased. But the _places_ grow ever more dear to
me. I like to know of anything that has happened at Heavitree, or
Brampford Speke, or Newton St. Cyres. I begin to pride myself on knowing
every road and lane, every bridle path and foot-way for miles about. I
like to learn the names of farms and of fields. And all this because
here is my abiding place, because I am home for ever.
It seems to me that the very clouds that pass above my house are more
interesting and beautiful than clouds elsewhere.
And to think that at one time I called myself a socialist, communist,
anything you like of the revolutionary kind! Not for long, to be sure,
and I suspect that there was always something in me that scoffed when my
lips uttered such things. Why, no man living has a more profound sense
of property than I; no man ever lived, who was, in every fibre, more
vehemently an individualist.