W HE ATFIELD S 



Another train booms, across the iron bridge in 

 the hollow. In a few hours now the carriages 

 will be crowded with men hastening home from 

 their toil in the City. The narrow streak of sun- 

 shine which day by day falls for a little while upon 

 the office floor, yellowed by the dingy pane, is all, 

 perhaps, to remind them of the sun and sky, of the 

 forces of nature ; and that little is unnoticed. The 

 pressure of business is so severe in these later days 

 that in the hurry and excitement it is not wonder- 

 ful many should forget that the world is not com- 

 prised in the court of a City thoroughfare. 



Rapt and absorbed in discount and dollars, in 

 bills and merchandise, the over-strung mind deems 

 itself all the body is forgotten, the physical body, 

 which is subject to growth and change, just as the 

 plants and the very grass of the field. But there 

 is a subtle connection between the physical man 

 and the great nature which comes pressing up so 

 closely to the metropolis. He still depends in the 

 nineteenth century, as in the dim ages before the 

 Pyramids, upon this tiny yellow grain here, rubbed 

 out from the ear of wheat. The clever mechanism 

 of the locomotive which bears him to and fro, 

 week after week and month after month, from 

 home to office and from office home, has not 

 rendered him in the least degree independent of 

 this. 



117 



