Impressions 



world, one where fruit is all sweet, flowers all 

 fair, the weather a succession of Maydays, 

 where all wrong is righted and pain unknown. 

 All this, at least, I find is the substantial un- 

 substantiality of a winter-day walk and wool- 

 gathering. 



It is significant that we can speak of walking 

 in winter in a confident manner. When the 

 south wind tempers the icy breath of the north, 

 I go a- walking and a-wool-gathering by the way. 

 I have a clear' vision of what was replacing 

 everything which is. Every blot upon the land- 

 scape fades. A bird's song now is the reviving 

 echo of dead music. When the earth was 

 younger, I fancy it must have been fairer. It 

 matters nothing that this may be false. What 

 I now see is very real, though it does not exist. 

 One gets outside of himself when wool-gather- 

 ing and is not to be measured by a common- 

 place standard. 



This winter day: there never was another 

 more perfect. I have the crested tit for my 

 authority. Its song may not have changed 

 since June, but it sings now for its own enter- 

 tainment and not for its mate. Perhaps it, too, 

 is wool-gathering and is now not the master, but 



27 



