May — Early Rising. 123 



XXIV. 



Early Rising — Not a virtue, but a Compensation — Chaucer's Early Ris- 

 ing — His passionate Love of Daisies — Chaucer's way of observing 

 Nature — How Etymology may be Poetical. 



IF early rising were so much of a virtue as its practi- 

 tioners generally assume, then indeed, in this respect 

 at least, should we be eminently virtuous in the Val Ste. 

 Veronique. We are all of us up and stirring before the 

 dawn, not for any particularly laudable passion for an 

 ideally perfect life, but in the case of the poor peasants 

 and servants who surround us from immemorial tradi- 

 tion simply, and the daily necessities of existence; and 

 in my own case from taste and choice, and the love of a 

 kind of pleasure which is blameless, and no more. In- 

 deed, I think that early rising is not so much a virtue 

 in people who live in the country as one of the many 

 pleasant compensations of their existence. They can- 

 not go to the opera in the evening, and they miss a 

 hundred delights and advantages of great cities ; but 

 they have certain pleasures of their own which it is wise 

 to enjoy to the utmost, and early rising is one of them. 

 We had kept late hours at Paris, as every one must 

 who lives with and in the life of a great capital ; but 

 here in the Val Ste. Veronique we followed the life of 

 Nature. 



