By his side, on a stand covered with white damask, stood a basket of luscious strawberries in a nest of their own leaves; also a vase of fragrant spring flowers—hyacinths, tulips, jonquils, daffodils, violets and heart’s-ease. Yet he neither touched nor tasted flowers or fruit.
Before him stretched the green lawn, shaded by acacia trees in full bloom, which filled the air with their rich aroma.
Farther on, the woods swept around the grounds, a semi-circular wall of living verdure.
Beyond them stood the cliffs, opal-tinted in the sunlight, misty where their heads were vailed by the soft white clouds which gave them their name.
Birds trilled their song of rapture through the perfumed air.
It was a lovely morning in a lovely scene. A morning and a scene that ministered to every sense, yet it was more than a mere material paradise, for its many delights combined to fill the soul with peace, joy and thankfulness, and so to raise it
“From Nature up to Nature’s God.”
Especially to a convalescent, coming for the first time out of his sick-room, must such a scene of summer glory have brought a delicious sense of new life in fresh and keen enjoyment, making him think that even of this material world it might be said, to some less favored people of some other planet: “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man the things that God hath prepared for them that love Him.”
But this was not the case with Tudor Hereward. To his sick soul, as to the diseased mind of another, the beauty of the earth and the glory of the heavens were but
“A foul and pestilent congregation of vapors,”