1/8 IDLEHURST: 



grain-elevator, the goods-siding paraphrase for us the 

 appointed weeks of harvest. 



In harvest weather I turn my walks often through 

 the cornfields ; the waving ears, the wealthy air of 

 a field in shock, the crisp dry rustle of the straw 

 which even in these dark days seems akin to the 

 crackle of a new Bank-note, the work in the field 

 (not infrequently in small or lodged pieces with 

 the immemorial sickle ; not often hereabouts with 

 that unconscionable self-binder) all these please 

 me as something passing away which I have lived 

 to see. 



Over towards Tyefold more corn is grown than 

 about Arnington ; you can find five or six fields of it 

 together. Yesterday, as I sat behind the fir-clump 

 and looked over the northern hillside. I could tell but 

 two fields showing the ochreous yellow of the ripe 

 ears, amongst the grey-green pastures in all the 

 hundred chessboard squares of the ridge and its dark- 

 green copses the ridge which within no long memory 

 was cornland from foot to crest. Unless the reaction 

 come soon, and we recoil into an Arcady of reduced 

 circumstances, there will be no corn, no harvest here. 

 The loss will be effectual in several ways ; we shall 

 have to adapt a deal of poetry and apologue, from the 

 Book of Ruth to the Harvest Festival hymns; we shall 



