PICTURES OF THE PAST. 359 



tracks by us untrodden, numerous objects still undescribed ; 

 but now, dear friends and companions of our sunny rambles 

 and our fire-side musings, now that the time draws near for us 

 to part, our heart opens towards you more personally, more 

 tenderly, more confidingly, and, instead of seeking for a novel 

 theme in some insect object or insect habitude not yet 

 portrayed, we feel a yearning to end as we began, with our em- 

 blematic personality, the individual Acheta domestica, even with 

 a concluding episode drawn from the annals of our childhood, 

 a quiet chrysalidan period, yet active in development of all 

 that constitutes our winged imago, our present self. Me- 

 mory ! painter of the past ! let us invoke thee ! Ah ! but 

 thou art too busy : we want but a single subject, and now, with 

 a few touches of thy magic pencil, thou hast brought before 

 us pictures enough of persons and of scenes to furnish an 

 entire gallery, pictures self-arranged, of which the clearest 

 and the warmest-tinted are those most distant. 



First, there is a landscape, half rural, half marine, of a 

 village near the Kentish coast, an old-fashioned quiet little 

 village, with its heavy-headed chimneys appearing here and 

 there amidst embowering elm-trees ; more distant, the square 

 spireless tower of the ancient church ; and behind all, caught 

 at intervals, the line of ocean, defined and dark, or mingled 

 almost with the blue horizon. 



Towards the centre of this wood-cradled nest, as a patent bird 

 amidst hex surrounding brood, and bearing towards the encir- 



