SUMMER HEAT 169 



the blissful sensation and feeling in its fulness. Then 

 a day came that was a revelation ; I all at once had 

 a deeper sense and more intimate knowledge of what 

 summer really is to all the children of life ; for it 

 chanced that on that effulgent day even the human 

 animal, usually regarded as outside of nature, was 

 there to participate in the heavenly bounty. That I 

 felt the happiness myself was not quite enough, un- 

 human, or uncivilised, as I generally am, and wish to 

 be. High up the larks were raining down their 

 brightest, finest music ; not rising skyward nor falling 

 earthward, but singing continuously far up in that 

 airy blue space that was their home. The little birds 

 that live in the furze, the titlarks, white-throats, 

 linnets, and stonechats, sprang upwards at frequent 

 intervals and poured out their strains when on the 

 wing. Each bird had its characteristic flight and 

 gestures and musical notes, but all alike expressed 

 the overflowing gladness that summer inspired, even 

 as the flowers seemed to express it in their intense 

 glowing colours; and as the butterflies expressed in 

 their fluttering dances, and in the rapturous motions 

 of their wings when at rest. There were many rabbits 

 out, but they were not feeding, and when disturbed 

 ran but fifteen or twenty yards away, then sat and 

 looked at me with their big, round, prominent eyes, 

 apparently too contented with life to suspect harm. 

 But I saw no human creature in the course of a long 

 ramble that morning until I was near the sea, when 



