TREES AND FLOWERS 125 



is then that I love to get away from the broad highway and 

 follow the grass-strewn track, or, better still, to leap over the 

 old stile, and gently saunter across a meadow footpath where no 

 man shall say you nay. As Marvel has written : 



" There are simple footpaths that I remember loitering through 

 day after day, in the rural districts of England, with a sense of 

 enjoyment that never belonged to saunterings in the alleys of 

 Versailles. A man does not know England, or English land- 

 scape, or English country feeling, until he has broken away from 

 railways, from cities, from towns, and clambered over stiles, and 



FIG. 58. WHITE VIOLETS. 



.lost himself in the fields. Talk of Chatsworth, and Blenheim, 

 and Eaton Hall ! Does a man know the pleasure of healthy 

 digestion by eating whip-syllabub ? Did Turner go to Belvoir 

 Castle Park for the landscapes which link us to God's earth ? 

 What a joy and a delight in those field-footpaths of England ! 

 Not the paths of owners only ; not cautiously gravelled walks ; 

 but all-men's paths, where any wayfarer may go ; worn smooth 

 by poor feet and rich feet, idle feet and working feet ; open 

 across the fields from time immemorial ; God's paths for his 

 people, which no man may shut ; winding coiling over stiles 

 leaping on stepping-stones through brooks with curves more 

 graceful than Hogarth's hieroglyphics of the Great Master 

 written on the land, which, being interpreted, say, 



" Love one another." 

 I stoop down to earth to caress the sweet-scented Violet 



