SUMMER 



THE PLEASURES OF JUNE 



I 



NEVER do fiery streets and hot, flashing glass, and the 

 noises and odours of town, awake a deeper loathing 

 than in early June, when the fields, coloured and cool, 

 and tuneful, ' half prankt with Spring, with summer 

 half imbrowned,' are commanding rather than inviting 

 our visitation. Life has once more taken full posses- 

 sion of the world, so that to watch its conquering 

 advance is happiness enough for that fortunate and 

 forgetful mortal who can ring down a curtain on the 

 past, and, wasting no speculation on the future, make 

 the present an interlude between them. But how 

 hard to attain this frame of mind ! How rare the 

 capacity to be absolutely idle ! Sitting under the 

 loose and melancholy boughs of an elm, in a green 

 and white and golden meadow, hard by a pond of 

 water-lily blooms and floating leaves, you shall seek 



