CHAPTER X 

 WHITE DUCK 



THE green colour of earth is pale in this March month 

 to what it will be a few weeks hence ; nevertheless 

 on this evening, a fortnight before the first day of 

 spring, after a long day spent sauntering in quiet places 

 in this Norfolk land, I seem to have been living in the 

 greenest of worlds. Grass and the colour of it is so 

 grateful to me, and even necessary to my well-being, 

 that when removed from the sight of it I am apt to fall 

 into a languishing state, a dim and despondent mind, 

 like one in prison or sick and fallen on the days 



Which are at best but dull and hoary, 

 Mere glimmerings and decay*. 



How good for mind and body, then, to be abroad at 

 this time when the increasing power of the sun begins 

 to work a perceptible change in the colour of earth ! 

 How natural that at such a season, just at the turn of 

 the year, I should take an entire day in the fields solely 

 to look at the grass, to rejoice in it again after the long 

 wintry months, nourishing my mind on it even as 

 old King Nebuchadnezzar nourished his body ! The 

 sight of it was all I went for, all I wanted, and what- 

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