The empty Snail-Shell 



current, the end of the coombe westwards away from the 

 hills seems to open to the sky ; for the ground falls rapidly, 

 and the trees hide any trace of human habitation. The 

 silent hills close in the rear, capped by the old fort ; the 

 silent cornfields come to the very edge above ; the silent 

 steep green walls rise on either hand, so near together that 

 the swallows in the blue atmosphere high overhead only 

 come into sight for a second as they shoot swiftly across. 

 In the evening the red sun, enlarged and bulging as if 

 partly flattened, hangs suspended, as it seems, at the very 

 mouth of the trough-like hollow. It is natural in the 

 silence and the solitude for thoughts of the lapse of time 

 to arise of the endless centuries since, by some slow 

 geological process, this hollow was formed. Fifteen hun- 

 dred years ago the men of the camp above came hither 

 to draw water ; still the spring oozes and flows, and the 

 sun sinks at the western mouth. So too, doubtless, the 

 sun shone into the hollow in the evening cycle upon cycle 

 ere then. 



Up the blade of grass here a tiny white-shelled snail 

 has crawled, feeling in its dull, dim way that evening is 

 approaching. The coils of the little shell are exquisitely 

 turned the workmanship is perfect; the creature within, 

 there can be no question, is equally perfect in its way and 

 finds a joy in the plants on which it feeds. On the ground 

 below, hidden among the fibres near the roots of the grass, 

 lies another tiny shell ; but it is empty, the life that once 

 animated it has fled whither ? Presently the falling dew 

 will condense upon it, and at the opening one round drop 

 will stand ; after awhile to add its mite to the ceaseless 

 flow of the fountain. Could any system of notation ever 

 express the number of these creatures that have existed in 

 the past ? If time is measured by the duration of life, 



E2 



