[35] To which the Bishop of Ely replies:
The strawberry grows underneath the nettle,
And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best,
Neighboured by fruit of baser quality.
It is a suggestive passage, considered from any point of view We live mixed lives in a mixed world, and we do not come upon the strawberries by themselves or all at once. We may find strawberries to-morrow where we can discover nothing but stinging-nettles to-day ‘Madcap Harry’ was not the only son whose life at first yielded nothing but nettles that stung and lacerated his father’s soul, and yet afterwards produced strawberries that were the delight, not only of the Church, but of the world at large.
[36]
III
THE CONQUEST OF THE CRAGS
I was strolling one still evening along a lonely New Zealand shore, when I made a grim discovery that has often set me thinking. I had been walking along the wet and crinkled sands, the tide being out, and had amused myself with the shells and the seaweed that had been left lying about by the receding waters. There is always a peculiar charm about such a stroll. It holds such infinite possibilities. One seems to be exploiting the surprise-packet of the universe. Jane Barlow, in her Bogland Studies, makes one of her characters say:
What use is one’s life widout chances? Ye’ve always a chance wid the tide;
For ye never can tell what ’twill take in its head to strew round on the shore;