XXXI 

 GOSSAMER 



FINE as gossamer ! Town-bred folks never see it, 

 and do not believe in its existence; they think 

 it is a poetical figment, like "honey-dew." That, too, 

 is nevertheless a real thing a honey- like juice poured 

 out by the little plant-lice or aphides. Gossamer is a 

 very real and a most beautiful thing. You may see it 

 on the hill-sides in fine October weather, when the sun 

 is bright but low enough to illuminate the delicate 

 threads and reveal the " veil of silk and silver thin " 

 spread over Nature's loveliness. The innumerable threads 

 glisten, and are so fine that they shine with iridescent 

 colours, as do the equally delicate soap-bubbles fabri- 

 cated by men and boys, and from the same cause. When 

 the eye gets accustomed to them and traces them 

 rippling and glimmering over acres and acres of grass- 

 land one feels disconcerted, almost awestruck, by the 

 revelation of this vast network of threads. Sometimes 

 the gentle currents of air break them loose from the 

 herbage, and they float at a higher level and envelop 

 the puzzled intruder in an almost invisible entanglement 

 of fairy lines. Sometimes they become felted together 

 in flakes and float or rest as incredibly delicate tissue, 

 woven by unseen mysterious agency. 



When the slopes of the new golf course at Wimbledon 

 .87 



