38 FIELD AND HEDGEROW. 



living ; and if the sunshine were a hundred hours long, 

 still it would not be long enough. No, never enough of 

 sun and sliding shadows that come like a hand over the 

 table to lovingly reach our shoulder, never enough of the 

 grass that smells sweet as a flower, not if we could live 

 years and years equal in number to the tides that have 

 ebbed and flowed counting backwards four years to every 

 day and night, backward still till we found out which 

 came first, the night or the day. The scarlet-dotted fly 

 knows nothing of the names of the grasses that grow 

 here where the sward nears the sea, and thinking of him 

 I have decided not to wilfully seek to learn any more of 

 their names either. My big grass book I have left at 

 home, and the dust is settling on the gold of the binding. 

 I have picked a handful this morning of which I know 

 nothing. I will sit here on the turf and the scarlet-dotted 

 flies shall pass over me, as if I too were but a grass. I 

 will not think, I will be unconscious, I will live. 



Listen ! that was the low sound of a summer wavelet 

 striking the uncovered rock over there beneath in the 

 green sea. All things that are beautiful are found by 

 chance, like everything that is good. Here by me is a 

 praying-rug, just wide enough to kneel on, of the richest 

 gold inwoven with crimson. All the Sultans of the East 

 never had such beauty as that to kneel on. It is, indeed, 

 too beautiful to kneel on, for the life in these golden 

 flowers must not be broken down even for that purpose. 

 They must not be defaced, not a stem bent ; it is more 

 reverent not to kneel on them, for this carpet prays itself. 

 I will sit by it and let it pray for me. It is so common, 

 the bird's-foot lotus, it grows everywhere ; yet if I 

 purposely searched for days I should not have found a 

 plot like this, so rich, so golden, so glowing with sun- 

 shine. You might pass by it in one stride, yet it is 



