THISTLE-DOWN 5 



— one could fancy that they were living things of 

 delicate aerial forms that had existed for a period 

 hidden and unsuspected among the matted roots of 

 the turf, until their time had come to rise like winged 

 ants from the soil and float on the air. 



When, lying on my back, I gazed up into the blue 

 sky, the air as far as I could see was still peopled 

 with the flying down ; and beyond all that was visible 

 to the naked eye, far from the earth still more down 

 was revealed by my glasses — innumerable, faintly seen 

 silvery stars moving athwart the immeasurable blue 

 expanse of heaven. 



Somehow, looking back at that day of abundant 

 thistle-down, the best day of its kind that I have 

 experienced in England, I find that it is not only a 

 pleasant memory, but also exists as a symbol of all 

 my days on the South Downs. For they can all 

 be shortened in the mind to one day, marked with 

 a thousand scenes and events, beginning with my 

 first sight from a distance of these round treeless 

 hills that were strange to me. Treeless they were, 

 and if not actually repelling, as indeed some have 

 found them, they were at all events uninviting in their 

 naked barren aspect. No sooner had I begun to 

 walk on and to know and grow intimate with them, 

 than I found they had a thousand unimagined plea- 

 sures, springing up in my way like those silvery stars 

 of down on Kingston Hill — a pleasure for every day 

 and every hour, and for every step, since it was a de- 



