204 ESOTERIC PERIPATETICISM. 



or more ago ? I was drawing towards 

 home, after a jaunt of an hour or two, 

 when I came suddenly into a sheltered and 

 sunny nook, where a bed of the early saxi- 

 frage was already in full bloom, while a 

 most exquisite little bee-fly of a beautiful 

 shade of warm brown was hovering over it, 

 draining the tiny, gold-lined chalices, one 

 by one, with its long proboscis, which 

 looked precisely like the bill of a humming- 

 bird. An ordinary picture enough, as far 

 as words go, only a little sunshine, a 

 patch of inconspicuous and common flow- 

 ers, and a small Bombylian without even 

 the distinction of bright colors. True; but 

 my spirit drank a nectar sweeter than any 

 the insect was sipping. And though, as a 

 rule, an experience of this sort were per- 

 haps better left unspoken, 



" A thought of private recollection, sweet and still," 



yet the mention of it can do no harm, while 

 it illustrates what I take to be one of the 

 principal advantages of the saunterer's con- 

 dition. His treasures are never far to seek. 

 His delight is in Nature herself, rather than 

 in any of her more unusual manifestations. 

 He is not of that large and increasingly 



