FOOTPATHS. 17 



Behind the bunches where the grass is thinner are 

 the heads of purple clover ; pluck one of these, 

 and while meditating draw forth petal after petal and 

 imbibe the honey with the lips till nothing remains but 

 the green framework, like stolen jewellery from which 

 the gems have been taken. Torn pink ragged robins 

 through whose petals a comb seems to have been re- 

 morselessly dragged, blue scabious, red knapweeds, 

 yellow rattles, yellow vetchings by the hedge, white 

 flowering parsley, white campions, yellow tormentil, 

 golden buttercups, white cuckoo-flowers, dandelions, 

 yarrow, and so on, all carelessly sown broadcast 

 without order or method, just as negligently as they 

 are named here, first remembered, first mentioned, 

 and many forgotten. 



Highest and coarsest of texture, the red-tipped 

 sorrel a crumbling red so thick and plentiful that 

 at sunset the whole mead becomes reddened. If these 

 were in any way set in order or design, howsoever 

 entangled, the eye might, as it were, get at them for 

 reproduction. But just where there should be flowers 

 there are none, whilst in odd places where there are 

 none required there are plenty. 



In hollows, out of sight till stumbled on, is a mass 

 of colour; on the higher foreground only a dull 

 brownish green. Walk all round the meadow, and 

 still no vantage point can be found where the herbage 

 groups itself, whence a scheme of colour is perceivable. 

 There is no " artistic " arrangement anywhere. 



So, too, with the colours of the shades of green 

 something has already been said and here are 

 bright blues and bright greens, yellows and pinks, 



c 



