ON my way back I found a cottage at Kobi for next summer. It is made of stone and has two rooms. A sparkling rivulet comes past, washing, as it were, the toes of the cottage. It will be empty if I come and claim it in the spring, and I think I shall. Now my summer draws to a close. Already the procession of autumn has commenced: the trees at the summits of the mountains have turned from green to golden. The messenger has come to Proserpine. Presently, where I used to count five snowy peaks, I shall find seven and then ten, till at last the little Sphinx mountain that squats outside Vladikavkaz will also be a peak and glisten like the rest. The thorn-apples have already burst and thrown out their crimson seed, and like dusty yellow balls the Cape gooseberries have appeared on the mountains. The glories of gold and brown have spread downwards like fire into the valleys. The leaves are falling from the trees on the hills where the wind roars, from the trees in the valleys, even from the trees in the town, where there is no wind at all, and the snow is descending in the 286valleys. The sleet falls in Vladikavkaz, and then snow, and then in November even Vladikavkaz is, as Moscow and St Petersburg and the whole wintry north, a snow-clad town. The cycle of seasons has gone round; winter turned to slush on Palm Sunday at Moscow, it changed to laughing spring on the hill-slopes at Vladikavkaz. Summer followed the plough over the fields and blushed in a myriad flowers. The maize fields waved, the sunflowers gazed. Then autumn was seen in the streets, whilst all the village folk threshed the corn with flails. The priest blessed the first fruits and autumn was past. Once more it became the turn of winter, the most Russian of all seasons. Quick pace the winter came just as it had passed away. As in the spring sledges gave way to wheels in a day, so now did the wheels give way and the sledge ruled the road.  
A wave of intense longing came and I must see England again. So one day found me once more in the city of fog and rain. As I walked down Fleet Street in Russian attire I heard someone say, “There goes a Pole.” But when I came into the city people were not deceived, and despite my shabby soft black hat, unclipped hair, and furry overcoat, a young man in Throgmorton Street persisted in whistling behind me that Gilbert and Sullivan air:—
 
“Oh, he might have been a Rooshian,
A Greek, a Turk, a Prooshian,
287But in spite of all temptati-on
To belong to another nati-on
He was an Englishman!”
Yes, he was.
 
The time comes to draw a line and strike a balance, and that is not an easy thing to do. Life to me has meant love, and, as Antony says, “there’s beggary in love that can be measured.” My gains are not to be set down. Many things are true until they are set down in words. A pressed flower is not a flower at all.
 
I went to Russia to see the world, to see new life, to breathe in new life. In truth it was like escaping from a prison, and now when I take a walk in London streets it seems as if I am taking the regulation exercise in a prison yard. And the dirty rags of London sky look like a tramp’s washing spread on the roots to dry. Still, it is given that we live even in prisons and under such skies for certain purposes. The towns have their beauties and mysteries even as the mountains have. I, least of all, have reason to be despondent there, for, like the companion of Christian, I have in my bosom that key which is called Promise.
 
At my room in the mill at Vladikavkaz I commonly looked out upon three pictures. In the foreground was a row of trembling poplars, and beyond these was a beautiful soft green hill, and beyond all a great grey mystic range of mountains. I call them the Present, the Future and the Eternal. The pleasant waving 288poplars were very real, very clear, and every leaf stood out distinctly, but on the green hill the trees were so many that I could not pick one out and see it clearly. It tempted me to go there and explore. The hill was full of allurement and charm, as it were, of the deep eyes of a woman as yet unknown but destined to be loved. It betrayed a mystery which it did not reveal.
 
Moreover, the green hill seemed to be the best standing place for looking into that vision of the eternal, of the ever-present mystery of Man and his Life. The mountains seemed to be the Ikon in God’s open-air room, His vast chamber of Nature.
 
Here then is the story of my life and of its gains written in the terms of these symbols. It was written at the Mill, it is a flower wreath gathered on the mountains.
 
The Horizon
 
A youth steps forward on the road and a horizon goes forward. Sometimes slowly the horizon moves, sometimes in leaps and bounds. Slowly while mountains are approached, or when cities and markets crowd the skies to heaven, but suddenly and instantaneously when summits are achieved or when the outskirts dust of town or fair is passed. One day, at a highest point on that road of his, a view will be disclosed and lie before him—the furthest and most magical glance into the 289Future. Away, away in the far-distant grey will lie his newest and last horizon, in a place more fantastic and mystical than the dissolving city, which the eye builds out of sunset clouds.
 
Time was when the youth played carelessly in a meadow and knew not of the upward road and mountainous track. The destiny which was his had spoken not from bee or flower; and if it came to him, came only as a dream-whisper in the soft breeze that now and then fluttered in his ears. The sun was then his, the blue sky and the field below, and flower and leaf and tree and the glad air. As these belonged to him, so he also belonged to them, and neither knew nor cared of the having or the losing. Life was joy, and joy was life. But mornings pass, and every noon is a turning-point. One afternoon found him wending from the meadow and bending steps towards a green slope that lay before him, cool and fresh and tempting. By a foot-path over the hill he went to the great high road. The grasses waved farewell to him as the evening breeze ruffled them in the sunlight. The green slope parted with him, and he left its sunlight and freshness, and his eyes looked on the road. What was there in the road that he should leave the hill for her—that he should take its dust for her? He knew not, neither questioned he, but moved ahead towards the highway which stretched out over the undulating plain far up into the west; towards the highway which led to the land of the setting sun, and 290which lost itself in a region of crimson and gold. For the sun went down to the level of the plain, and for a moment appeared as the very gateway through which at last the great road gave into enchanted regions. Onward the youth sped gaily, light in his face, life in his steps, the songs of the meadow-birds in his heart. Some spell in the road drew him onward, or some meaning wrought in him impelled him forward. Onward he sped on the long upward road, and gained its first incline as the sunset faded away. Then had the horizon faded inward near him, and all became grey and lonely as he gained the next incline, and then a summit gained, the first summit giving view to further slope and further crest. He now left the land of plains and upward made his path, and only seldom descended into valleys; but as night came on, and with night wistfulness and loneliness, he looked about him where he should find rest. He lay down in the grass by the roadside, and the fresh odour in the grass brought back the meadow thoughts, and a certain staleness and dustiness came as sadness upon his heart. And as he lay watching the starlight growing brighter in the grey sky, he dreamed uneasily of the gay meadow and its flies and bees, and of the red sunset-gate, and of something appalling, though mysterious, there.
 
Many days followed this day, and the youth had lain on many banks of the same long dusty road, when one afternoon a change came over him. He had tired early, 291for the noonday sun had been terrible, and the hot road hard to his way-weary feet. He had lain among the long fresh grasses beside a bush of the wild rose, and had fallen asleep. Weary had he been, and the world had seemed dull to him, the road ever the same, the sky the same, village and town the same, and nowhere was there beauty and freshness and new delight. Not seven days a week were there for him but to-day, name it what one would, eternally recurred. He fell asleep among the grasses. But when he woke it was in a surprise, for the world had changed. Away in the west the sun had set mildly and a little moon had risen; a tender night breeze was on the wing, and earliest moths flitted from bush to tree. He awakened, or rather he and himself awakened, a self below himself had awakened, as if the soul had drawn curtains from two windows after a long custom of drawing from only one. A new being waking, blinked uneasily to find itself in the swing and motion of life. “Who set me going?” it asked, for it had power to ask questions that the first being could not answer. The road stretched out an eternity before and an eternity behind, but he knew not why, and could give no answer to the questions: What is the road? Whither leads the road? Whence comes the road? Where did you begin to march upon it? Why did you leave the meadow? To all these questions answer such as could be given was forthcoming, and was unsatisfactory enough withal. Long into night 292brooded the two beings together, and then for weariness forgot and slept. And the next morn both awoke and took this road, upon which his steps had become a habit. Now all was thought and question, and the youth found a new use for the wayfarers he met, and not a tradesman or pilgrim or petty trafficker upon the road but he put to him his questions concerning the destiny which was at the end of the way. To most these questions were too difficult. Not a few said there was no answer, not a few said there was no question. Many would have persuaded him that he sought a mere shadow, a phantom, an illusion. Many bade him give up t............