148 " Through the Wheat'' 



them, and, seen from this point, look as though closed 

 in by trees, though here, as in many other cases, 

 distance lends enchantment to the view; and as you 

 advance, you find that the effect is due to mere clusters 

 here and there coming more and more into line with 

 each other as you retire further and gain this fine 

 effect. Beyond these, again, the ground sinks and 

 passes into the valley in which lies the stream I have 

 spoken of as skirting " my wood." It covers the 

 rising slope ; and behind, still higher, is the gentle 

 hill of Frating, with its church tower rising from amid 

 a screen of trees like a picture the very scene which 

 from time immemorial painters have delighted to paint, 

 as if in this they found the highest imaginative hint of 

 rustic and village life in England, the spire or church 

 tower pointing the mind to another and higher life, 

 while below all the squalor and the grimy struggle and 

 want is hidden there behind the trees. Art is said to 

 be the revealer, not seldom it is the concealer too, as I 

 have more than once thought, and looked at Frating 

 from my window, where skilful tree-planting round 

 the vicarage and the church has done much to gain 

 picturesque effect by concealing so much lying below 

 and behind them. 



As I withdraw my eyes, they rest on the wheat-field 

 more immediately before me, now crowned with its 

 golden glory. What a wealth there is all through the 

 season, and has been here both for ear and eye ! In 

 the spring and early summer the larks made a per- 

 petual concert, the sweet strains growing at once more 

 piercing, keen, and full as the spiral ascent led higher, 

 higher, and the bird, at last lost to the eye in the sun- 

 light, was still clearly heard, recalling Shelley's raptu- 

 rous lines, so kindled with the music of the bird. And 



