i82 ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



ings for the Army. When he saw Salisbury Cathedral 

 and heard the choir he was so delighted that he resolved 

 to spend his Sundays and any day he had off at the 

 cathedral. He was musical himself, and belonged to 

 some musical society in his own town. He talked of 

 his love of music with sparkling eyes, and while he 

 talked he continued watching the birds, the daws sweep- 

 ing round and round, mounting higher and higher until 

 they were above the cross; and then from that vast 

 height they would hurl themselves suddenly downwards 

 towards the great building and the earth. All at once, 

 as we watched a bird coming down, he threw his arms 

 up and cried excitedly, "Oh, to fly like that!" 



And you, said I to myself, born in a hideous grimy 

 manufacturing town, breathing iron dust, a worker in 

 an ugly material engaged in making ugly things, have 

 yet more poetry and romance, more joy in all that is 

 beautiful, than one could find in any native of this soft 

 lovely green south country! 



Does not this fact strike every observer of his fellows 

 who knows both north and south intimately? How 

 strange then to think that well-nigh all that is best 

 in our poetic literature has been produced by southerners 

 — by Englishmen in the southern half of the country! 

 Undoubtedly the poetic feeling is stronger and more 

 general in the north, and we can only conclude that from 

 this seemingly most favourable soil the divine flower 

 of genius springeth not. 



To return to my commercial traveller. I told him 

 where to go in search of the nightingale, and meeting 



