WALKS IN THE WHEAT-FIELDS. 129 



thorn bushes — all so distinct and close under that you 

 might almost fear to breathe for fear of dimming the 

 mirror. The few white clouds sailing over seemed to 

 belong to the fields on which their shadows were now 

 foreshortened, now lengthened, as if they were really 

 part of the fields, like the crops, and the azure sky so 

 low down as to be the roof of the house and not at all a 

 separate thing. And the sun a lamp that you might 

 almost have pushed along his course faster with your 

 hand ; a loving and interesting sun that wanted the 

 wheat to ripen, and stayed there in the slow-drawn arc 

 of the summer day to lend a hand. Sun and sky and 

 clouds close here and not across any planetary space, 

 but working with us in the same field, shoulder to 

 shoulder, with man. Then you might see the white 

 doves yonder flutter up suddenly out of the trees by the 

 farm, little flecks of white clouds themselves, and every- 

 where all throughout the plain an exquisite silence, a 

 delicious repose, not one clang or harshness of sound to 

 shatter the beauty of it. There you might stand on the 

 high down among the thyme and watch it, hour after hour, 

 and still no interruption ; nothing to break it up. It was 

 something like the broad folio of an ancient illuminated 

 manuscript, in gold, gules, blue, green ; with foliated 

 scrolls and human figures, somewhat clumsy and thick, 

 but quaintly drawn, and bold in their intense realism. 



There was another wheat-field by the side of which I 

 used to walk sometimes in the evenings, as the grains in 

 the ears began to grow firm. The path ran for a mile 

 beside it — a mile of wheat in one piece — all those 

 million million stalks the same height, all with about 

 the same number of grains in each ear, all ripening to- 

 gether. The hue of the surface travelled along as you 

 approached ; the tint of yellow shifted farther like the 



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