138 WINTER SUNSHINE 



that bird darting along the hedge-rows, those men 

 and boys picking blackberries in October, those Eng- 

 lish flowers by the roadside (stop the carriage while 

 I leap out and pluck them), the homely, domestic 

 looks of things, those houses, those queer vehicles, 

 those thick- coated horses, those big-footed, coarsely- 

 clad, clear-skinned men and women, this massive, 

 homely, compact architecture, — let me have a good 

 look, for this is my first hour in England, and I am 

 drunk with the joy of seeing! This house-fly even, 

 let me inspect it ; ^ and that swallow skimming along 

 so familiarly, — is he the same I saw trying to cling 

 to the sails of the vessel the third day out? or is 

 the swallow the swallow the world over 1 This grass 

 I certainly have seen before, and this red and white 

 clover, but this daisy and dandelion are not the 

 same; and I have come three thousand miles to see 

 the mullein cultivated in a garden, and christened 

 the velvet plant. 



As we sped through the land, the heart of Eng- 

 land, toward London, I thought my eyes would 

 never get their fill of the landscape, and that I 

 would lose them out of my head by their eagerness 

 to catch every object as we rushed along! How 

 they reveled, how they followed the birds and the 

 game, how they glanced ahead on the track — that 

 marvelous track I — or shot ofl* over the fields and 

 downs, finding their delight in the streams, the 

 roads, the bridges, the splendid breeds of cattle and 



1 The English house-fly actually seemed coarser and more 

 hairy than ours. 



