. The book of months . ;!■ THE BOOK OF MONTHS your head among voluptuous gildings and gazeinto looking-glasses which show you the countryand the telegraph posts reeling giddily back-ward, yet you still travel, and at any rate, ifyou are going where you have never been before,something new and unknown waits for you be-hind the advancing line of the horizon. Thusthe one thing I never need on a journey is abook; it is sufficient entertainment for me merelyto look out of the window and see new country;vale and glen or plain and mountain-peak•■■■•;;^^| hurry to greet me in endless procession. Soswi
. The book of months . ;!■ THE BOOK OF MONTHS your head among voluptuous gildings and gazeinto looking-glasses which show you the countryand the telegraph posts reeling giddily back-ward, yet you still travel, and at any rate, ifyou are going where you have never been before,something new and unknown waits for you be-hind the advancing line of the horizon. Thusthe one thing I never need on a journey is abook; it is sufficient entertainment for me merelyto look out of the window and see new country;vale and glen or plain and mountain-peak•■■■•;;^^| hurry to greet me in endless procession. Soswiftly one moves that it is hardly possible toweary of what one sees before it is gone; everybend in the line may show something above all things the headlong passagethrough the station of a large town delightsme. First comes a mile of sordid house-backsbuilt onto the line; then a short tunnel at whichthe engine screams; then a wider glance of thetown, with perhaps a gray cathedral tower190 « AUGUST watching over it all; then close against the win-dow slanting lines of people, like rain, on thegray tapering platform, the names of thestations hidden, like a plum in a bun from its ownrefreshment-room, in plasters of advertisement;the signal-box with its rows of gleaming sema-phores; the mile of sordid house-roofs again,and out into the green fields. Then at a stilegoing onto the line there wait a couple of chil-dren, whom in all human probability you willnever see again, waving their hats at the gayexpress. For a glimpse only you saw them, butthey have their lives in front of them, fraughtwith momentousness to themselves at least, andperhaps to others. It is even possible that inyears to come the line of your life may crosstheirs, that tragedy or comedy is already weav-ing the ropes that will bring you together inlove or death or laughter. For of all phrases chance meeting is the most illogical. Ifchance exists at all, nothing exists except
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