The Wardens of the River

While men are going about with a bit of lens and a measure of acid, explaining the hidden things of this world, I should be very glad if they would explain why it is that the evening of an autumn day always recalls the lost Kingdom of the Little. The sun squinting behind the mountains, the blue haze deepening in the hollows of the hills, the cool air laden with faint odours from the nooks and corners of the world,--what have these to do with the land of the work-a-day?

Long and long ago in that other country it meant that the fairies were gathering under the hill for another raid on the province of the goblins across the sedge-fields; that the owls were going up on the ridges to whisper with the moon; that the elves one by one, in their quaint yellow coats, were stealing along under the oak trees on the trail of the wolf spider. But what can it mean in the grown-up country?

When the Golden Land is lost to us, when turning suddenly we find the enchanted kingdom vanished, do we give up the hope of finding it again? We know that it is somewhere across the world, and we ought to find it, and we know, too, that its out-country is like these October afternoons, and our hearts beat wildly for a moment, then the truth strikes and we see that this is not The Land.