138 WINTER SUNSHINE 



that bird darting along the hedge-rows, those men 

 and boys picking blackberries in October, those Eng- 

 lish flowers by the roadside (stop the carriage while 

 I leap out and pluck them), the homely, domestic 

 looks of things, those houses, those queer vehicles, 

 those thick- coated horses, those big-footed, coarsely- 

 clad, clear-skinned men and women, this massive, 

 homely, compact architecture, — let me have a good 

 look, for this is my first hour in England, and- 1 am 

 drunk with the joy of seeing! This house-fly even, 

 let me inspect it ; ^ and that swallow skimming along 

 so familiarly, — is he the same I saw trying to cling 

 to the sails of the vessel the third day out? or is 

 the swallow the swallow the world over ? This grass 

 I certainly have seen before, and this red and white 

 clover, but this daisy and dandelion are not the 

 same; and I have come three thousand miles to see 

 the mullein cultivated in a garden, and christened 

 the velvet plant. 



As we sped tlirough the land, the heart of Eng- 

 land, toward London, I thought my eyes would 

 never get their fill of the landscape, and that I 

 would lose them out of my head by their eagerness 

 to catch every object as we rushed along ! How 

 they reveled, how they followed the birds and the 

 game, how they glanced ahead on the track — that 

 marvelous track ! — or shot off" over the fields and 

 downs, finding their delight in the streams, the 

 roads, the bridges, the splendid breeds of cattle and 



1 The En<?lish house-fly actually seemed coarser and more 

 kairy than ours. 



