The Four Men

The Twenty-Ninth of October 1902

Nine years ago, as I was sitting in the “George” at Robertsbridge, drinking that port of theirs and staring at the fire, there arose in me a multitude of thoughts through which at last came floating a vision of the woods of home and of another place—the lake where the Arun rises.

And I said to myself, inside my own mind:

“What are you doing? You are upon some business that takes you far, not even for ambition or for adventure, but only to earn. And you will cross the sea and earn your money, and you will come back and spend more than you have earned. But all the while your life runs past you like a river, and the things that are of moment to men you do not heed at all.”

As I thought this kind of thing and still drank up that port, the woods that overhang the reaches of my river came back to me so clearly that for the sake of them, and to enjoy their beauty, I put my hand in front of my eyes, and I saw with every delicate appeal that one’s own woods can offer, the steep bank over Stoke, the valley, the high ridge which hides a man from Arundel, and Arun turning and hurrying below. I smelt the tide.

Not ever, in a better time, when I had seen it of reality and before my own eyes living, had that good picture stood so plain: and even the colours of it were more vivid than they commonly are in our English air; but because it was a vision there was no sound, nor could I even hear the rustling of the leaves, though I saw the breeze gusty on the water meadow banks, and ruffling up a force against the stream.