THE ENCHANTED ISLAND.

A

I.

THE ISLAND.

MONG the myths of the morning there is one

that has always seemed to me more lovely than the rest. It describes how on the long line of the Scandinavian coast, every night, when darkness has folded the land in sleep, there comes to one of the rude fishermen who dwell by the sea-shore a sudden awakening from his slumber, and a recognition of a presence which he cannot see, and a will which he cannot resist. In storm or calm, summer or winter, it is all the same; every night throughout the long year the visitor comes, and when he comes there is nothing to do but to arise, and follow, and obey. The bridegroom must leave his bride in her new home; the father his children; the old man his desolate hearth.

Following the strange

messenger he is led down to the shore.

There he enters

his boat, casting it loose from its moorings; and as he

B

PREFACE.

IT

T is not difficult to surmise how England became The Enchanted Island. The hardy fishermen pushing out from the western shores of the great continent of Europe would see our white cliffs, at dawn flushed with roseate light, at night-fall glorified by the setting sun. Such a line on the horizon-beautiful to look upon, perhaps dangerous to approach, certainly unexplored-might well be the land of which even Heine dreamed.

Myth first; then History; then Religion; always the struggle going on between good and evil. Now Science with its clear eyes; and the common-place work-a-day world with its dull eyes; and Nature with eyes as of a god-a sun-god-so bright. And over all the spell of an Enchanter's wand. That is the subject of this little book.

To "The Enchanted Island" I have added some

further Studies of Books. They should be read with the Studies which have preceded them in "The Witness of Art" and "The Higher Life in Art." Kissing Carrion, Men and Angels, Landscape Art in Poetry, Launcelot Lictor, Hobgoblins by the Great Masters, The Painter's Reward, are chapters of the same series. If I have seemed to bear hardly upon the pessimist literature of the day, it is because I believe it to be a serious and growing evil.

The "Studies for Pictures" have been my companions during many happy hours of labour. They are leaves from my sketch-book-notes in pen and pencil of subjects which have grown into pictures. Separated from the paintings for which they have hitherto spoken, they must now learn to speak for themselves.