Oct. 13, 1882.] 



• KNOWLEDGE • 



321 



THE SUN AND THE BROOK. 

 By Richard Jeffeeies. 



Author of "The Gamekeeper at Home." 

 fllHE sun first sees the brook in the meadow where some 

 JL roach swim under a bulging root of ash. Leaning 

 against the tree, and looking down into the water, there is 

 a picture of the sky. Its brightness hides the sandy floor 

 of the stream as a picture conceals the wall where it hangs, 

 but, as if the water cooled the rays, the eye can bear to 

 gaze on the image of the sun. Over its circle thin 

 threads of summer cloud are drawn ; it is only the 

 reflection, yet the sun seems closer seen in the brook, 

 more to do with us, like the grass, and the tree, 

 and the flowing stream. In the sky it is so far, 

 it cannot be approached, nor even gazed at, so that 

 by the very virtue and power of its own brilliance it 

 forces us to ignore, and almost forget it. The summer 

 days go on, and no one notices the sun. The sweet 

 water slipping past the green flags, with every now and 

 then a rushing sound of eager haste, receives the sky, and 

 it becomes a part of the earth and of life. No one can 

 see his own face without a glass ; no one can sit down and 

 •deliberately think of the soul till it appears a visible 

 thing. It eludes — the mind cannot grasp it. But hold a 

 •flower in the hand — a rose, this later honeysuckle, or this 

 the first harebell — and in its beauty you can recognise your 

 ■own soul reflected as the sun in the brook. For the soul 

 finds itself in beautiful things. 



Between the bulging root and the bank there is a tiny 

 oval pool, on the surface of which the light does not fall 

 There the eye can see deep down into the stream, which 

 scarcely moves in the hollow it has worn for itself as its 

 weight swings into the concave of the bend. The hollow is 

 illumined by the light which sinks through the stream out- 

 side the root; and beneath, in the green depth, five or six 

 roach face the current. Every now and then a tiny curl 

 appears on the surface inside the root, and must rise up to 

 come there. Unwinding as it goes, its raised edge lowers 

 and becomes lost in the level. Dark moss on the base of 

 the ash darkens the water under. The light green leaves 

 overhead yield gently to the passing air ; there are but few 

 leaves on the tree, and these scarcely make a shadow on 

 the grass beyond that of the trunk. As the branch swings, 

 the gnats are driven further away to avoid it. Over the 

 verge of the bank, bending down almost to the root in the 

 water, droop the heavily-seeded heads of tall grasses which, 

 growing there, have escaped the scytlie. 



These are the days of the convolvulus, of ripening berry, 

 and dropping nut. In the gateways, oars of wheat hang 

 from the hawthorn boughs, which seized them from the 

 passing load. The broad aftermath is witho\it flowers ; 

 the flowers are gone to the uplands and the untilled wastes. 

 Curving oppositi; the .south, tlie hollow side of the brook 

 has received the sunlight like a silvered speculum ('very 

 •day that the sun has shone. Since the first violet of the 

 meadow, till now that the berries are ripening, through all 

 the long drama of the summer, the rays have visited 

 the stream. The long, loving touch of the .sun has left 

 some of its own mystic attraction in tlie brook. Resting 

 here, and gazing down into it, thoughts and dreams come 

 flowing as the water flows. Thoughts without words, mobil(> 

 like the stream, nothing compact that can be grasped 

 and stayed : dreams that slip silently as water slips 

 through the fingers. The grass is not grass alone ; the 

 leaves of the ash above are not leaves only. From 

 tree, and earth, and soft air moving, there conies an 

 invisible touch which arranges the senses to its waves as 



the ripples of the lake set the sand in parallel lines. The 

 grass sways and fans the reposing mind ; the leaves sway 

 and stroke it, till it can feel beyond itself and with them, 

 using each grass blade, eacli leaf, to abstract life from earth 

 and ether. These tlien become new organs, fresh nerves 

 and veins running afar out into the field, along the winding 

 brook, up through the leaves, Itringing a larger existence. 

 The arms of the mind open wide to the broad sky. 



Some sense of the meaning of the grass, and leaves of the 

 tree, and sweet waters hovers on the confines of thought, 

 and seems ready to be resolved into definite form. There 

 is a meaning in these things, a meaning in all that exists, 

 and it comes near to declare itself. Not yet, not fully, 

 nor in such shape that it may be formulated — if ever it will 

 be — but sufficiently so to leave, as it were, an unwritten 

 impression that will remain when the glamour is gone, and 

 grass is but grass, and a tree a tree. 



HOW TO GET STRONG. 



(Contmuedfrom page 233.) 

 TO STRENGTHEN THE UPPER BACK AND SHOU 



IN our last, we considered the muscles in front of the 

 chest — or, technically, the pectoral muscles. We 

 have now to consider how the muscles of the upper liack 

 and shoulder — the dorsal muscles — may be strengthened. 



Here, for the first time in these papers, we are con- 

 sidering muscles which are more apt to be over-developed, 

 relatively, than to have insufficient amount of exercise. It 

 is much more common to see men round-shouldered in con- 

 sequence of undue development of the muscles of the 

 upper back, than to see the muscles of the arms or legs, 

 or of the front of the chest or alidomen, too fully deve- 

 loped. The deformity — for such it unquestionably is — 

 may, indeed, generally arise rather from insufticient deve- 

 lopment of other muscles than from excessive use of the 

 dorsal muscles. Still, it remains the case that probably of 

 all the muscles of the body those which in this country are 

 generally attended to best are the muscles of the upper 

 back and shoulders. 



The reason of this is that the favourite forms of exercise 

 in this country are such as encourage the development 

 chiefly of these muscles. " Rowing," says Maclaren, " is 

 the chief of all our recreative exercises; no other can enter 

 the lists against it ; in fact, it has collected and concen- 

 trated in itself all the attractions and all the emulative 

 distinctions of all others." Next to rowing, boxing used 

 to be a favourite exercise, and it still holds a place in our 

 gymnastic system. Now, boxing is good for the chest and 

 pectoral muscles, and in rowing the muscles of the legs mai/ 

 bo very actively employed. But in both exercises, and in 

 others which are in higli esteem in this country, the dorsal 

 muscles are actively used. In rowing especially tliis is the 

 case— insomuch that you can tell any rowing-man when his 

 shoulders are stripped, iiml some rowing niou even when 

 they wear their usual clothing, by the way in whicli the 

 muscles of the upper back and shoulders outweigh, so to 

 -speak, tho muscles of the front of the chest 



The idea that rowing expands the chest is as absurd in 

 reality as the cogniito mistake that it specially strengthens 

 the biceps muscles. Yet both mistakes are so common 

 that if you tell most rowing men that their exercise is 

 better for tho shoulders than for the chest, better for the 

 forearm than for the upper arm, and better (if properly 

 managed) for the legs ti\an for tiie arms, they will think 

 you are laughing at them. Yet it has been demonstrated 

 by actual measurement that this is the true state of the 



