The Pleasures of Quiet But now those valuable and permanent
powers are no longer make- believes. They have emerged again, like the still, small voice after the storm, and the rest of the intimate phenomena of the countryside are settling back into place round them. For home comes first ; the birth, marriage and death place, where Man and his Maker really sit in solitude together, sharing the processes of deep, mutual discovery. How much more exciting, more dramatic, is quiet than noise. The microscopic traffic of little things comes out once more, and the human mind is able once more to focus down to it, regaining the divine ecstasy of wonder, and dropping the devilish ecstasy of terror. This change-over came to me last week with some emphasis. I took the corgi for his bedtime walk, and from across the top terrace of my garden I saw on the south-eastern horizon the glare of fire. It was a white band of light that rose and fell rhythmically, to the accompaniment of a dull rumble. It was Boulogne burning.
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