NATURE NEAR LONDON 



ing. A greenfinch rises with a yellow gleam and 

 a sweet note from the grass, and is off with some- 

 thing for his brood, or a starling, solitary now, for 

 his mate is in the nest, startled from his questing, 

 goes straight away. 



Dark starlings, greenfinch, gilded fly, glistening 

 beetle, blue butterfly, humble-bee with scarf about 

 his thick waist, add their moving dots of colour 

 to the surface. There is no design, no balance, 

 nothing like a pattern perfect on the right-hand 

 side, and exactly equal on the left-hand. Even 

 trees which have some semblance of balance in 

 form are not really so, and as you walk round 

 them so their outline changes. 



Now the path approaches a stile set deep in 

 thorns and brambles, and hardly to be gained for 

 curved hooks and prickles. But on the briars 

 June roses bloom, arches of flowers over nettles, 

 burdock, and rushes in the ditch beneath. Sweet 

 roses buds yet unrolled, white and conical ; roses 

 half open and pink tinted ; roses widespread, the 

 petals curling backwards on the hedge, abandoning 

 their beauty to the sun. In the pasture over the 

 stile a roan cow feeds unmoved, calmly content, 

 gathering the grass with rough tongue. It is not 

 only what you actually see along the path, but 

 what you remember to have seen, that gives it its 

 beauty. 



