ISO ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



the southern parts, this verdure is never more deHghtful 

 and refreshing to the soul than when we come to it 

 straight from some such hilly and moorland district as, 

 say, that of the Peak of Derbyshire, with its brown 

 harsh desolate aspect. All the qualities which go to 

 make our southern landscape what it is to us are then 

 intensified, or "illustrated by their contraries," as Defoe 

 would have said. 



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 utter- 

 most confines of the imiverse, 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 in- 

 definitely. Could any one imagine a greater bliss than 

 to sit or recline at ease in a railway carriage with that 



