NOTES ON LANDSCAPE PAINTING. 185 



do not exist — it was a machine in the workshop, but 

 it is not a machine in the wheat-field. For the wheat- 

 field you see is very, very old, and the air is of old 

 time, and the shadow, the flowers, and the sunlight, 

 and that which moves among them becomes of them. 

 The solitary reaper alone in the great field goes round 

 and round, the red fans striking beside him, alone 

 with the sunlight, and the blue sky, and the distant 

 hills ; and he and his reaper are as much of the corn- 

 field as the long-forgotten sickle or the reaping-hook. 



The sharp rattle of the mowing-machine disturbs 

 the corncrake in the meadow. Crake ! crake ! for 

 many a long day since the grass began to grow fast 

 in April till the cowslips flowered, and white parsley 

 flourished like a thicket, blue scabious came up, and 

 yonder the apple trees drop their bloom. Crake ! 

 crake ! nearly day and night ; but now the rattle 

 begins, and the bird must take refuge in the corn. 

 Like the reaper, the mowing-machine is buried under 

 the swathe it cuts, and flowers fall over it — broad 

 ox-eye daisies and red sorrel. Upon the hedge June 

 roses bloom ; blackbirds whistle in the oaks ; now 

 and again come the soft hollow notes of the cuckoo. 

 Angles and wheels, cranks and cogs, where are they ? 

 They are lost ; it is not these we see, but the flowers 

 and the pollen on the grass. There is an odour of 

 new-made hay; there is the song of birds, and the 

 trees are beautiful. 



As for the drill in spring-time, it is ancient indeed, 

 and ancients follow it — aged men stepping after over 

 the clods, and watching it as if it were a living thing, 

 that the grains may fall each in its appointed place. 



