22 FRESH FIELDS 



there seems to be a kind of finer soil floating in the 

 air. How else can one account for the general 

 smut of the human face and hands in this country, 

 and the impossibility of keeping his own clean? 

 The unwashed hand here quickly leaves its mark 

 on whatever it touches. A prolonged neglect of 

 soap and water, and I think one would be presently 

 covered with a fine green mould, like that upon 

 the boles of the trees in the woods. If the rains 

 were not occasionally heavy enough to clean them 

 off, I have no doubt that the roofs of all buildings 

 in England would in a few years be covered with 

 turf, and that daisies and buttercups would bloom 

 upon them. How quickly all new buildings take 

 on the prevailing look of age and mellowness! 

 One needs to have seen the great architectural piles 

 and monuments of Britain to appreciate Shake- 

 speare's line, — 



" That unswept stone, besmeared with sluttish Time." 

 He must also have seen those Scotch or Cumberland 

 mountains to appreciate the descriptive force of this 

 other line, — 



" The turfy mountains where live the nibbling sheep." 



The turfy mountains are the unswept stones that 

 have held and utilized their ever- increasing capital 

 of dirt. These vast rocky eminences are stuffed 

 and padded with peat; it is the sooty soil of the 

 housetops and of the grimy human hand, deepened 

 and accumulated till it nourishes the finest, sweetest 

 grass. 



It was this turfy and grassy character of these 



