had been travelling, and they reflected a colour of other lands that called to me. Thought and longing now turned to an older world. There were ancient wonders, soft with age, mature with a beauty and tenderness only timelessness can give, that caught me on the raw with a power no Yosemites, Niagaras, or Grand Canyons could hope to imitate. Size has its magic, but size bludgeons the imagination, rather than feeds it. My heart turned suddenly across the sea. I loved the big woods, but behind, beyond the woods, great Egypt lay ablaze....
I talked things over with the Old Man of Visions; he advised me to go home. "See your mother before she dies," he urged. "I cannot come with you, but I may follow you." He added: "I shall miss you," then dropped into poetry, as he always did when he was moved....
It was these talks with Old Louis about England, the atmosphere of England as well, that my sister somehow left behind her, my own yearnings now suddenly reawakened too, that decided me. My detestation of the city both cleared and deepened. I began to understand more vividly, more objectively, the reasons for my feeling alien in it. I missed tradition, background, depth. There was a glittering smartness everywhere. The great ideal was to be sharper, smarter than your neighbour, above all things sharp and smart and furiously rapid, above all things--win the game. To be in a furious rush was to be intelligent, to do things slowly was to be derided. The noise and speed suggested rapids; the deep, quiet pools were in the older lands. Display, advertisement, absence of all privacy I had long been aware of, naturally; I now realized how little I desired this speed and glittering brilliance, this frantic rush to be at all costs sharper, quicker, smarter than one's neighbour, to win the game at any price. I realized why my years in the city had brought no friendships, and why they had been starved as well as lonely....
Some months passed before I booked a passage, however. I was sorry to leave James Speyer. Then one day he spoke to me about--marriage. For a year or more
