88 IRature Stubies in Berkshire. 



than to be furnished with the key to even a fraction 

 of what these travellers in the upper world have to 

 say as they go their various ways. So it would be a 

 sad thing to be hindered in one's duty and balked of 

 one's privileges all the summer, by an unfortunate 

 choice of location which should circumscribe the 

 horizon and limit the sky-view. 



It is not too much to say that, for all sensitive 

 natures, keyed to a nice and intimate association 

 with the external world, the day takes its complexion 

 from the sky. There is an acknowledged connection 

 between the face of the firmament and the aspects 

 of mountain and sea, ay, of the whole landscape. 

 When the clouds gather, the sea looks black and 

 the mountain frowns ; when they scatter, the waves 

 seem to dance and to smile and the mountain glows 

 with new attractions. 



There is an association quite as close between the 

 moods of the human spirit and the face of the sky. 

 The coarsest natures feel it in relation to the sharper 

 contrasts in this upper zone. The veriest lout will 

 scare a little when the thunder-squall darkens the 

 noon. Even kitchen scullions brighten up a bit 

 when the long storm breaks and the sun shines again. 

 But this is only the rudimentary sense. Refined and 

 developed, it becomes alive to the finest shades of 

 difference in the light, the draping of the clouds, the 

 transparency of the atmosphere. I have known a 

 man to be homesick as long as the haze and smoke 

 hung low over the mountains and hilltops, and re- 



