The good S--- writes me a kindly letter. He is troubled by the thought
of my loneliness. That I should choose to live in such a place as this
through the summer, he can understand; but surely I should do better to
come to town for the winter? How on earth do I spend the dark days and
the long evenings?
I chuckle over the good S---'s sympathy. Dark days are few in happy
Devon, and such as befall have never brought me a moment's tedium. The
long, wild winter of the north would try my spirits; but here, the season
that follows autumn is merely one of rest, Nature's annual slumber. And
I share in the restful influence. Often enough I pass an hour in mere
drowsing by the fireside; frequently I let my book drop, satisfied to
muse. But more often than not the winter day is blest with sunshine--the
soft beam which is Nature's smile in dreaming. I go forth, and wander
far. It pleases me to note changes of landscape when the leaves have
fallen; I see streams and ponds which during summer were hidden; my
favourite lanes have an unfamiliar aspect, and I become better acquainted
with them. Then, there is a rare beauty in the structure of trees
ungarmented; and if perchance snow or frost have silvered their tracery
against the sober sky, it becomes a marvel which never tires.
Day by day I look at the coral buds on the lime-tree. Something of
regret will mingle with my joy when they begin to break.
In the middle years of my life--those years that were the worst of all--I
used to dread the sound of a winter storm which woke me in the night.
Wind and rain lashing the house filled me with miserable memories and
apprehensions; I lay thinking of the savage struggle of man with man, and
often saw before me no better fate than to be trampled down into the mud
of life. The wind's wail seemed to me the voice of a world in anguish;
rain was the weeping of the feeble and the oppressed. But nowadays I can
lie and listen to a night-storm with no intolerable thoughts; at worst, I
fall into a compassionate sadness as I remember those I loved and whom I
shall see no more. For myself, there is even comfort in the roaring
dark; for I feel the strength of the good walls about me, and my safety
from squalid peril such as pursued me through all my labouring life.
"Blow, blow, thou winter wind!" Thou canst not blow away the modest
wealth which makes my security. Nor can any "rain upon the roof" put my
soul to question; for life has given me all I ever asked--infinitely more
than I ever hoped--and in no corner of my mind does there lurk a coward
fear of death.