CHAPTER X 



WHITE DUCK 



Green grass in March — White ducks in a blue pool — Mental 

 associations connected with the duck — A legend of the 

 country of the dead — Beauty and rarity — Sobriquet of an 

 English queen. 



THE green colour of earth is pale in this March 

 month to what it will be a few weeks hence; 

 nevertheless on this evening, a fortnight be- 

 fore the first day of spring, after a long day spent 

 sauntering in quiet places in this Norfolk land, I 

 seem to have been living in the greenest of worlds. 

 Grass and the colour of it is so grateful to me, and 

 even necessary to my well-being, that when removed 

 from the sight of it I am apt to fall into a languishing 

 state, a dim and despondent mind, like one in prison 

 or sick and fallen on the days 



Which are at best but dull and hoary, 

 Mere glimmerings and decays. 



How good for mind and body, then, to be abroad at 



this time when the increasing power of the sun begins 



to work a perceptible change in the colour of earth! 



How natural that at such a season, just at the turn 



of the year, I should take an entire day in the fields 



solely to look at the grass, to rejoice in it again after 



the long wintry months, nourishing my mind on it 



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