I can still see the mystical rose, the tower
of ivory, and the gate of gold, before which I have passed many a long
morning in a state betwixt sleep and waking. _Hortus conclusus, fons
signatus_, very plainly represented by means of what may be
described as mural miniatures, excited my curiosity very much, but my
imagination was too chaste to carry my thoughts beyond the limits
of pious wonder. I am afraid that this beautiful park has been sadly
injured by the war and the Communist insurrection of 1870--71. It was
for me, after the cathedral of Treguier, the first cradle of thought.
I used to pass whole hours under the shade of its trees, seated on a
stone bench with a book in my hand. It was there that I acquired
not only a good deal of rheumatism, but a great liking for our damp
autumnal nature in the north of France. If, later in life, I have been
charmed by Mount Hermon, and the sunheated slopes of the Anti-Lebanon,
it is due to the polarisation which is the law of love and which leads
us to seek out our opposites. My first ideal is a cool Jansenist bower
of the seventeenth century, in October, with the keen impression of
the air and the searching odour of the dying leaves. I can never
see an old-fashioned French house in the Seine-et-Oise or the
Seine-et-Marne, with its trim fenced gardens, without calling up to
my mind the austere books which were in bygone days read beneath the
shade of their walks. Deep should be our pity for those who have never
been moved to these melancholy thoughts, and who have not realised how
many sighs have been heaved ere joy came into our heart.
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