104 NATURE IN DOWNLAND 



seen behind the last screen of all. I am not sure if 

 these were to follow the downland shepherd to his 

 lowly home, to converse familiarly every day and live 

 intimately with him, that they would not be dis- 

 appointed, and conclude that the differences between 

 him and others of his rank and race, who have other 

 occupations the labourer of the weald for instance 

 are very much on the surface and hardly worth 

 troubling about. 



I class myself somewhere between the two ex- 

 tremes : not satisfied with the mere semblance or 

 appearance of things, seeing men as trees and rocks, 

 or as works of art, I am nevertheless not teased 

 " tormented," De Quincey would have written with 

 that restless desire to pry into and minutely examine 

 the secret colour and texture of the mind of every 

 person I meet. It is the mental attitude of the natu- 

 ralist, whose proper study is not mankind but animals, 

 including man ; who does not wish to worry his brains 

 overmuch, and likes to see very many things with 

 vision a little clearer than the ordinary, rather than 

 to see a very few things with preternatural clearness 

 and miss all the rest. 



In the case of the downland shepherd, this com- 

 paratively superficial knowledge which contents me 

 has made me greatly admire him. That he differs 

 considerably from others on the surface we cannot 

 but see; and it would indeed seem strange if this 

 had not been the case, since the conditions of his life 



