234 



JULY. 



FIELD PATHS are at this season particu- 

 larly attractive. I love our real old English 

 foot paths. I love those rustic and picturesque 

 stiles opening their pleasant escapes from fre- 

 quented places and dusty highways into the 

 solitudes of nature. It is delightful to catch a 

 glimpse of one on the old village-green ; under 

 the old elder-tree by some ancient cottage, or 

 half hidden by the overhanging boughs of a 

 wood. I love to see the smooth, dry track, 

 winding away in easy curves, along some green 

 slope to the church-yard to the forest-grange 

 or to the embowered cottage. It is to me an 

 object of certain inspiration. It seems to in- 

 vite one from noise and publicity into the heart 

 of solitude, and of rural delight. It beckons 

 the imagination on through green and whisper- 

 ing corn-fields, through the short but verdant 

 pasture; the flowering mowing-grass; the 

 odorous and sunny hay-field ; the festivity of 

 harvest ; from lonely farm to farm, from village 

 to village ; by clear and mossy wells ; by tink- 

 ling brooks and deep wood-skirted streams, to 

 crofts where the daffodil is rejoicing in spring, 

 or meadows where the large blue geranium 

 embellishes the summer wayside; to heaths 



