The Birds' Calendar 



phere, develoi)ing at least a spirit of poetry, 

 and refining the sentiment, if not enlarging 

 the mind. There are notable instances where 

 pastoral life has produced such results. That 

 these instances are exceptional, can only be re- 

 garded as one of the proofs that, as the elec- 

 trician would say, between senses and sus- 

 ceptibilities there is no ** short circuit," or at 

 best only an insufficient connection, and that 

 we must expect sentiment to wait upon intel- 

 lect, and the technically uneducated to be apa- 

 thetic. 



It is not at all unlikely that Wordsworth 

 may have been on some occasion nettled by 

 the rude jostling of a prosaic nature, causing 

 him in one of his poems to represent a rural 

 resident as saying ■: 



"These Tourists, heaven preserv-e us I needs must 

 live 

 A profitable life : some glance along. 

 Rapid and gay as if the earth were air. 

 And they were butterflies to wheel about 

 Long as the summer lasted : some, as wise, 

 Perched on the forehead of a jutting crag, 

 Pencil in hand and book upon the knee. 

 Will look and scribble, scribble on and look. 

 Until a man might travel twelve stout miles. 

 Or reap an acre of his neighbor's corn." 



240 



