1 70 NATURE NEAR LONDON 



earth which for ever produces and receives back again 

 and yet is for ever at rest enters into and soothes the 

 heart. 



The time slips by, a rook emerges from yonder mass 

 of foliage, and idly floats across, and is hidden in 

 another tree. A whitethroat rises from a bush and 

 nervously discourses, gesticulating with wings and tail, 

 for a few moments. But this is not possible for long ; 

 the immense magnetism of London, as I have said 

 before, is too near. There comes the quick short beat 

 of a steam launch shooting down the river hard by, and 

 the dream is over. I rise and go on again. 



Already one of the willows planted about the pond is 

 showing the yellow leaf, before midsummer. It reminds 

 me of the inevitable autumn. In October these ponds, 

 now apparently deserted, will be full of moorhens. I 

 have seen and heard but one to-day, but as the autumn 

 comes on they will be here again, feeding about the 

 island, or searching on the sward by the shore. Then, 

 too, among the beeches that lead from hence towards 

 the fanciful pagoda the squirrels will be busy. There 

 are numbers of them, and their motions may be watched 

 with ease. I turn down by the river ; in the ditch at 

 the foot of the ha-ha wall is plenty of duckweed, the 

 Lemna of the tank. 



A little distance away, and almost on the shore, as it 

 seems, of the Thames, is a really noble horse-chestnut, 

 whose boughs, untouched by cattle, come sweeping 

 down to the ground, and then, continuing, seem to lie 

 on and extend themselves along it, yards beyond their 

 contact. Underneath, it reminds one of sketches of 

 encampments in Hindostan beneath banyan trees, 

 where white tent cloths are stretched from branch t< 

 branch. Tent cloths might be stretched here in similar 



