An Aittumn Reverie 133 



in the country than a curiosity about Natural History. 

 To enjoy it thoroughly one must resolutely determine 

 to take no thought of what is passing around. If a 

 man feel under a moral obligation to ' observe ' every 

 weasel in chase of a rabbit, if the appearance of a 

 strange bird sends him home to consult a work on 

 ornithology, if a kestrel questing a field mouse excites 

 him, he will be more tranquil in town. The continuity 

 of his ideas is liable to fracture at the most interesting 

 moment. My most delicious reveries come at even- 

 tide, when the river gleams in moonlight, and the 

 slender willow-boughs droop like a dark fountain in 

 play ; but what would become of them if I had a 

 burning anxiety about every warbler that twitters late 

 in the sedges, if the humming of a beetle made me 

 wish to catch it, if I ever asked was that the barn-owl 

 that shrieked ? No, it is a prime essential not only 

 to meditation but enjoyment, that you have only a 

 negative love of wild things one that consists in an 

 absence of dislike to country sights and sounds. 



For example, there is a certain house wherein I 

 love to be alone, but that is unbearable with company. 

 Owing to an easily explained cause, the wind is always 

 singing mournful tunes to its inmates. Look out of 

 the window and you will easily see why ; it stands in 

 a wooded hollow, and the surrounding heights are all 

 fringed with rows of pine-trees. So every visitor is 

 asked to take note of the ceaseless moaning that 

 swells in storm to a raving, and sinks in calm to the 



