152 ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



to visit them ; it was only the thought of the long green 

 way that fascinated me. By-and-by it came into 

 my mind that some one had said, just to enable us to 

 grasp the idea of their distance from earth, that it 

 would take a non-stopping express train, forty million 

 years to get to a star — which star, if any particular one 

 was meant, I don't remember. The thought of it be- 

 gan to oppress me, for by-and-by, after a few centuries 

 perhaps, I should begin to wish for a break, a stop for 

 half an hour, let us say, at some small wayside station 

 to enable me to lie down for a few minutes on my back 

 in the grass to gaze up into the blue sky with its floating 

 white clouds, and, above all, to listen to the skylark 

 and to every other sweet singing bird. I began to 

 think that seeing is not everything, since we have 

 other senses ; I wanted to hear and smell and taste 

 and feel ; to wrap myself about with these sensations, 

 to pierce and dwell in them as some tiny insect pene- 

 trates to the hollow chamber of a flower to feed at 

 ease on its secret sweetness. I recalled the complaint 

 of the spiritual-minded author of the Cynthiades to 

 his Cynthia, that he was not content even in their 

 moments of supremest bliss — even when she was so 

 close to him that they knew each other's thought 

 without a whisper : — 



Yet I desire 

 To come more close to thee and to be nigher ; 



still dissatisfied to find that their souls remained 

 distinct and separate when he would have had them 



