THOUGHTS FROM WRITINGS 



as you walk by the hedges day by day 

 there is always some fresh circumstance 

 of nature, the interest of which in a 

 measure blots out the past. — ' Field and 

 Hedgerow ' : Among the Nuts. 



COULD imperial Rome have only 

 grown sufficient wheat in Italy 

 to have fed her legions, Caesar 

 would still be master of three-fourths of 

 the earth. Rome thought more in her 

 latter days of grapes and oysters and 

 mullets, that change colour as they die, 

 and singing girls and flute-playing, and 

 cynic verse of Horace — anything rather 

 than corn. Rome is no more, and the 

 lords of the world are they who have 

 mastership of wheat— 'Field and Hedge- 

 row' : Walks in the Wheatfields. 



DESPOTS grind half the human 

 race, and despots stronger 

 than man— plague, pestilence, 

 and famine— grind the whole ; and yet 



98 



