If one were well and could master his body in every way, he would be able to see plainly the white lines which connect everything together, and the crowns that are on the heads of the ones who deserve them. And one could see the history of a stone, a tree, or any old thing.
What wonderful stories there would be in an old Beech tree that has stood in the same place for more than a hundred years, and has seen all the wonders that came that way. Their upper branches are always looking up, and so at night they would see all the Sleep-bodies that pass that woods. The beech trees would make the old witches feel so good and happy by fanning them with their leaves and shading them that the witches would undo all the evil spells they had cast on people, and so many other wonderful stories would there be in a Beech tree's history.
12
TEARING-DOWN SENTIMENT
It was mid-fall. Now, with the tiling, planting, stone study and stable, the installation of water and trees and payments on the land, I concluded that I might begin on that winter and summer dream of a house—in about Nineteen Hundred and Twenty-three.... But I had been seeing it too clearly. So clear a thought literally draws the particles of matter together. A stranger happened along and said:
"When I get tired and discouraged again, I'm coming out here and take another look at your little stone study."
I asked him in. He was eager to know who designed the shop. I told him that the different city attics I had worked in were responsible. He found this interesting. Finally I told him about the dream that I hoped some time to come true out yonder among the baby elms—the old father fireplace and all its young relations, the broad porches and the nine stone piers, the bedrooms strung on a balcony under a roof of glass, the brick-paved patio below and the fountain in the centre.... As he was a very good listener, I took another breath and finished the picture—to the sleeping porch that would overhang the bluff, casement-windows, red tiles that would dip down over the stone-work, even to the bins for potatoes and apples in the basement.