MINE OWN COUNTRY
search, however, I found a window once through which, now and then, a glint of sunlight came to surprise us. The seeds showed signs of life, which encouraged me to seek a place for them on the outskirts of nature, where they first grew to tenderness and beauty, in confusion and abundance. But they were smitten of a sudden, almost asphyxiated. From all the public highways around us came the fatal breath of the God of Gasoline. Deep into the glen, therefore, and far from the highways of motoring-man, we remove, seeking the virgin soil in the very heart of nature.
But here were wild flowers that reminded me of the roses, the jasmines and the sweet-basils of the homely nurseries of Lebanon. And in the deep silence of the woods the shadows of my native pines arose before me, above the majestic hemlocks, to say salaam. The myrtle and the sage around the scrub oaks beckoned and called. The crocus, the anemone, the cyclamen, blooming everywhere, as by magic, over the pale images of the asters and the goldenrods,
[131]
