WALKS IN THE WHEAT-FIELDS. 147 



sprays of delicate seaweed slow turning from their winter 

 outline to the soft green shading of summer ; add to these 

 the upspringing of the wheat and its slow coming to that 

 maturity of gold which marks the fulness of the year ; 

 consider, then, the incomparable beauty of the mowing 

 grass. Now remember that they live among these things, 

 and by daily iteration the dullest mind becomes wrapped 

 up in and welded to them. Black type on white paper is 

 but a flat surface after these. Secondly, the books and 

 papers themselves, made and printed in such enormous 

 quantities, do not touch a country mind. They have such 

 a cityfied air. Very correct, very scientific, and extremely 

 well edited, but thin in the matter. Something so stagey 

 — you may see it, for instance, in the books for children in- 

 troducing fairies, which fairies have short skirts, and caper 

 about exactly like a pantomime among stage frogs and 

 stage mushrooms, and it is quite clear that the artist who 

 drew them, and the author who wrote of them, actually 

 drew their inspiration from the boards of a theatre. They 

 have never dreamed among the cowslips of the real fields, 

 they have never watched the ways of the birds from 

 under an oak. Children instinctively see that these toy- 

 books are not natural, and do not care for them ; they 

 may be illustrated in gold and colours, sumptuously 

 got up, and yet they are failures. Children do not take 

 these to bed with them. I have seen this myself; I bought 

 so many books to please children, but could never do it 

 till by chance some one sent a little American toy-book, 

 ' The History of the Owl and his Little One, and the 

 Manoeuvres of the Fox.' This had a little of the spirit of 

 the woods in it, and was read and re-read for a year. Only 

 the other day a lady was telling me much the same thing, 

 how she had bought book after book but could never hit 

 on anything to please her little boy, till at last she found 



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