IN A GREEN COUNTRY 149 



Thus it was that, on coming south from the Peak 

 district at the end of May, it seemed to me that 

 never since I had known England, from that morning 

 in early May when I saw the sun rise behind the white 

 cliffs and green downs of Wight and the Hampshire 

 shore, had it seemed so surpassingly lovely — so like 

 a dream of some heavenly country. There have been 

 days of torment and weariness when the wish has 

 come to me that I might be transported from this 

 ball to the uttermost confines of the universe, to the 

 remotest of all the unnumbered stars, to some rock 

 or outpost beyond the furthest of them all, where I 

 might sit with all matter, all life, for ever behind and 

 with nothing but infinite empty space before me, 

 thinking, feeling, remembering nothing, through all 

 eternity. Now the wish or thought of a journey to the 

 stars came to me again, but with a different motive: 

 in the present instance it was purely for the sake 

 of the long and wholly delightful journey, not for 

 anything at the end. My wish was now to prolong 

 the delight of travelling in such scenes indefinitely. 

 Could anyone imagine a greater bliss than to sit or 

 recline at ease in a railway carriage with that immortal 

 green of earth ever before him, so varied in its shades, 

 so flowery, splashed everywhere with tender, brilliant 

 gold of buttercups, so bathed in sunlight and shaded 

 with great trees — green woods with their roots in 

 the divine blue of the wild hyacinth. Who would not 

 wish to go on for days, months, years even, to the 

 stars if we could travel to them in that way! 



I don't know much about the stars, nor am I 



