150 ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



anxious to visit them; it was only the thought of 

 the long green way that fascinated me. By-and-by it 

 came into my mind that someone had said, just to 

 enable us to grasp the idea of their distance from earth, 

 that it would take a non-stopping express train forty 

 million years to get to a star — which star, if any 

 particular one was meant, I don't remember. The 

 thought of it began to oppress me, for by-and-by, 

 after a few centuries perhaps, I should begin to wish 

 for a break, a stop for half an hour, let us say, at some 

 small wayside station to enable me to lie down for 

 a few minutes on my back in the grass to gaze up 

 into the blue sky with its floating white clouds, and, 

 above all, to listen to the skylark and to every other 

 sweet singing bird. I began to think that seeing is 

 not everything, since we have other senses ; I wanted 

 to hear and smell and taste and feel; to wrap myself 

 about with these sensations, to pierce and dwell in 

 them as some tiny insect penetrates to the hollow 

 chamber of a flower to feed at ease on its secret 

 sweetness. I recalled the complaint of the spiritual- 

 minded author of the Cynthiades to his Cynthia, 

 that he was not content even in their moments of 

 supremest bliss — even when she was so close to 

 him that they knew each other's thought without 



a whisper: 



Yet I desire 

 To come more close to thee and to be nigher; 



still dissatisfied to find that their souls remained dis- 

 tinct and separate when he would have had them touch 

 like two neighbouring raindrops and become one. 



