The Open Air 



time. In them the sun has written his commands, 

 and the wind inscribed deep thought. They were 

 before superstition began ; they were composed in the 

 old, old world, when the Immortals walked on earth. 

 They have been handed down thousands upon thou- 

 sands of years to tell us that to-day we are still in the 

 presence of the heavenly visitants, if only we will give 

 up the soul to these pure influences. The language in 

 which they are written has no alphabet, and cannot be 

 reduced to order. It can only be understood by the 

 heart and spirit. Look down into this foxglove bell 

 and you will know that; look long and lovingly at 

 this blue butterfly's underwing, and a feeling will rise 

 to your consciousness. 



Some time passed, but the butterfly did not move; 

 a touch presently disturbed him, and flutter, flutter 

 went his blue wings, only for a few seconds, to another 

 grass-stalk, and so on from grass-stalk to grass-stalk 

 as compelled, a yard flight at most. He would not 

 go farther; he settled as if it had been night. There 

 was no sunshine, and under the clouds he had no 

 animation. A swallow went by singing in the air, and 

 as he flew his forked tail was shut, and but one streak 

 of feathers drawn past. Though but young trees, 

 there was a coating of fallen needles under the firs an 

 inch thick, and beneath it the dry earth touched 

 warm. A fern here and there came up through it, the 

 palest of pale green, quite a different colour to the 

 same species growing in the hedges away from the 

 copse. A yellow fungus, streaked with scarlet as if 

 blood had soaked into it, stood at the foot of a tree 

 occasionally. Black fungi, dry, shrivelled, and dead, 

 lay fallen about, detached from the places where they 

 had grown, and crumbling if handled. Still more 

 silent after sunset, the wood was utterly quiet; the 



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