6 THE FACE OF THE FIELDS 



singing, blossoming world under a pall. Every- 

 thing has seemed to cower, skulk, and hide, to 

 run as if pursued. There was no peace, no stirring 

 of small life, not even in the quiet of the deep 

 pines; for here a hawk would be nesting, or a 

 snake would be sleeping, or I would hear the 

 passing of a fox, see perhaps his keen hungry face 

 an instant as he halted, winding me. 



Fox and snake and hawk are real, but not the 

 absence of peace and joy — except within my own 

 breast. There is struggle and pain and death in 

 the woods, and there is fear also, but the fear does 

 not last long; it does not haunt and follow and 

 terrify ; it has no being, no substance, no continu- 

 ance. The shadow of the swiftest scudding cloud 

 is not so fleeting as this shadow in the woods, 

 this Fear. The lowest of the animals seem capable 

 of feeling it ; yet the very highest of them seem 

 incapable of dreading it ; for them Fear is not of 

 the imagination, but of the sight, and of the pass- 

 ing moment. 



The present only toucheth thee ! 

 It does more, it throngs him — our fellow mortal 

 of the stubble field, the cliff, and the green sea. 

 Into the present is lived the whole of his life — 



