Foolishly and without thinking of real things, acting as though indeed
that life of dream and of illusion were still possible to me, I
yesterday cut with great care a rose, one from the many that have now
grown almost wild upon the great wall overlooking the Danube. Then ... I
could not but smile to myself when I remembered how by the time that
rose should have reached you every petal would be wasted and fallen in
the long week's ride. There is a fixed term of life for roses also as
for men. I do not cite this to you by way of parable. I have no heart
for tricks of the pen to-night; but the two images came together, and
you will understand. If I do not return, it is for the same reason that
I could not send the rose.
The Regret
Everybody knows, I suppose, that kind of landscape in which hills seem
to lie in a regular manner, fold on fold, one range behind the other,
until, at last, behind them all some higher and grander range dominates
and frames the whole.
The infinite variety of light and air and accident of soil provide all
men save those who live in the great plains with examples of this sort.
The traveller in the dry air of California or of Spain, watching great
distances from the heights, will recollect such landscapes all his life.
They were the reward of his long ascents and the visions which attended
his effort as he climbed up to the ridge of his horizon.
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