If I die, to live
again, I have it behind me that I have lived well already. I am that much
to the good. And, that others may have the same fortune, I shall devote
what time remains to me to teaching the truth, _The less you have the more
you are._ This was his intention when he sat down to pen his _Shepherd's
Crown_; before he dared look back upon _Open Country_, or to plant the
sacred crocus, or to look upon the dry colchicum flower which had been
granted the grace of a fair breast."
[Illustration: The hum of cities and buzz of dinner tables ... sound in
his ears not at all.]
We meet him again, but not yet. We have him fast in his moorings, and are
to see him rather as a fixed point about which other wandering lights
stray in narrowing circles, to which they converge. We are to conceive of
him, if you please, as writing his Book, while the hum of cities, and buzz
of dinner-tables, noisy enough to us and full of excitement, sound in his
ears not at all. And when I have done, you will discover, if you care, why
he changed the title of his third volume from _Shepherd's Crown_, and
chose it to be called _Rest Harrow_.
The way thither is long, and many things are to happen to many people; but
little happens to him except the wheeling of the years.
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