242 THE OPEN AIE. 



lifted up on high a mast and weather-vane ! a thing 

 useful on the sea-board at coastguard stations for 

 signalling, but oh ! how repellent and straight and 

 stupid among clumps of graceful elms ! 



II. 



The dismal pits in a disused brickfield, unsightly 

 square holes in a waste, are full in the shallow 

 places of an aquatic grass, Eeed Canary Grass, I 

 think, which at this time of mists stretches forth 

 sharp-pointed tongues over the stagnant water. 

 These sharp-pointed leaf-tongues are all on one side 

 of the stalks, so that the most advanced project 

 across the surface, as if the water were the canvas, 

 and the leaves drawn on it. For water seems always 

 to rise away from you to slope slightly upwards ; 

 even a pool has that appearance, and therefore 

 anything standing in it is drawn on it as you might 

 sketch on this paper. You see the water beyond and 

 above the top of the plant, and the smooth surface 

 gives the leaf and stalk a sharp, clear definition. 

 But the mass of the tall grass crowds together, every 

 leaf painted yellow by the autumn, a thick cover at 

 the pit-side. This tall grass always awakes my 

 fancy, its shape partly, partly its thickness, perhaps ; 

 and yet these feelings are not to be analysed. I like 

 to look at it ; I like to stand or move among it on 

 the bank of a brook, to feel it touch and rustle 

 against me. A sense of wildness comes with its 

 touch, and I feel a little as I might feel if there was 

 a vast forest round about. As a few strokes from 



