The next morning I was awakened long hours before sunrise. A lay brother lit me with a lantern through the dark and ancient park. The monastery gate swung on its hinges, the latch fell heavily, and I was again out in the world all silvery with the moonlight. For a moment I stood entranced.—I heard the mass bell calling the monks to prayers. And the gates of Paradise were closed behind me.
O
The last echoes.—My wanderings through Spain filled me with the joy of life. She had become my second home. It was with a heavy heart that I left.
“O follow me ye southern days
’Neath colder skies and paler stars.
And fill my thoughts with golden rays!”
The hour of departure had arrived.—It was a wonderful moonlight night in which the little Spanish steamer which was to bear me homewards sailed slowly out of Ferrol harbour. The moon cast a silver bridge over the water, and along it my thoughts fled back to other moonlight nights when she had often shown me the way in picturesque Spain.
The lights along the coast shone like the eyes of anxious friends looking a last farewell before darkness closed their lids. And then the little ship ploughed homeward through the eternal waters with the eternal sky above us, and the old old song of the waves accompanied me back to my familiar home.
And now that days and weeks of cloudy skies hang heavily over my country where the sun is not so generous as in southern climes, my heart is filled with yearning for Spain, with nostalgia for the sun.—Then I look at my pictures, and we hold converse together, and re-live those unfettered days spent in wanderings in sun-kissed Spain.
In this volume I send forth my sun harvest. May it cast its light in the hearts of many! May it tell of my love of Spain, and of my heartfelt thanks to her chivalrous people for all their kind hospitality!