The Eider Duck 



CHAPTER X 

 White Duck 



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 before 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 tlie colour of it is so grateful to 

 me, and even necessary to my well-being, that when 

 removed from the siglit 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 



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