JOURNAL OF VARIATION. 



Vol. VII. No. 2. October 15th, 1895. 



LYING FALLOW. 



By Rev. G. M. A. HEWETT, M.A. 



I wonder whether it is possible to bhxsh in print. Probably some 

 will say that a liberal use of red ink will accomplish that result ; but at 

 any rate I think that I can prove that red ink does not necessarily imply 

 a blush, for under no circumstances can I conceive that the composers 

 of the rubrics in our Prayer Book were blushing when they composed 

 those blameless productions. Nor again does it seem to me that the 

 presence of a blush compels the wearer of the same to transfer the 

 ruddy colour to pen and paper, for I have never heard that Betsy 

 wastes a penny of her hardly-earned wages on red ink when she 

 writes to William to signify her consent to his request for a Sunday 

 walk. As to that hardened old villain, Barkis, I don't believe he 

 blushed, and he certainly was not such a fool as to commit his 

 " willingness" to paper. But even if the colour had risen imder his 

 weather-beaten cuticle, and even if it had seemed fitting to him to 

 write his brief and well-known message, I cannot think that some 

 museum would now have possessed that priceless document, well writ 

 in red. However, I am open to conviction, if any of my readers can 

 bring forward strong enough arguments to the contrary. 



Perhaps the simplest and neatest way, after all, is to proclaim to 

 the world in honest black that I am conscious of a slight heightening 

 of colour in writing this confession that I am taking a year's rest, or 

 rather, not so much that I am idling from entomology, for I am sure 

 that others have done the same, as that I am glorying in the fact, and 

 inclined to advocate it as a wise principle. Of course, I can quote 

 plenty of precedent. The devil will always supply that. In classical 

 times, " Apollo did not always keep his bow strung," and the youngest 

 student of English History is aware of the fact that for a brief period 

 we rested from Royalty and became a Commonwealth. Again, a good 

 farmer will give his land a rest ; in fact, in these evil days, some land 

 gets more rest than it needs, so Irish landlords say, and the hungriest 

 of autumn larv^ are liable to hybernate, as we know to our sorrow. 

 But after all, Apollo went back with joy to his archery, England 

 welcomed the Restoration with a joy that was so unrestrained as to be 

 sometimes barely decent, land is again going to feel the harrow and 

 bear shekels under the soothing guidance of a Conservative Government 



