THE ANGLING HAMLET 



brooks, pebbly runlets, are breaking out everywhere. 

 The edges of the roadside sing and glance, and 

 every meadow hedge in the narrow valley seems to 

 shade in summer the haunt of waterhen or grebe. 



We can no more word-paint the water than we 

 can the sunbeam. The intenser the feeling for the 

 beauty of these fountains from the benign chalk, 

 the less the power to communicate our thought of 

 it to others. Ruskin went nearest telling what 

 he saw in a chalk stream a "welling of stainless 

 water, trembling and pure, like a body of light . . . 

 cutting itself a radiant channel down to the gravel, 

 through warp of feathery weeds, all waving, which 

 it traverses with its deep threads of clearness like 

 the chalcedony in moss agate, stained here and 

 there with the white of grenouillette." Here, at 

 least, we have a suggestion of the play and sparkle 

 of the chalk stream, the tremulous, sinuous lines 

 drawn through the fast, smooth currents. But who- 

 ever went near to write down its responsiveness to 

 the slightest change in the mood of the March or 

 June day ? The quickest plate is insensitive to 

 the sunlight compared with the face of the chalk 

 stream of the angling hamlet. 



Titmouse Treasure 



The long-tailed titmice, pair by pair, are leaving 

 the woodland parties of titmice, golden-crested 

 wrens and tree-creepers, to seek nesting sites. With 



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