THOUGHTS FROM WRITINGS 



dove, I should lead a nearly perfect life. 

 — ' The Life of the Fields ' : The Pageant 

 of Summer. 



HUMAN thoughts and imagin- 

 ings written down are pale 

 and feeble in bright summer 

 light. The eye wanders away, and 

 rests more lovingly on greensward and 

 green lime leaves. The mind wanders 

 yet deeper and farther into the dreamy 

 mystery of the azure sky. . . . The 

 delicacy and beauty of thought or feeling 

 is so extreme that it cannot be inked 

 in ; it is like the green and blue of field 

 and sky, of veronica flower and grass 

 blade, which in their own existence 

 throw light and beauty on each other, 

 but in artificial colours repel. . . . Never 

 yet have I been able to write what I 

 felt about the sunlight only. Colour and 

 form and light are as magic to me. It 

 is a trance. It requires a language of 



58 



