HERBS 



The delicious silence is not the silence of night, 

 of lifelessness ; it is the lack of jarring, mechanical 

 noise ; it is not silence, but the sound of leaf and 

 grass gently stroked by the soft and tender touch of 

 the summer air. It is the sound of happy finches, 

 of the slow buzz of humble-bees, of the occasional 

 splash of a fish, or the call of a moorhen. Invis- 

 ible in the brilliant beams above, vast legions of 

 insects crowd the sky, but the product of their 

 restless motion is a slumberous hum. , 



These sounds are the real silence; just as a tiny 

 ripple of the water and the swinging of the shadows 

 as the boughs stoop are the real stillness. If they 

 were absent, if it was the soundlessness and still- 

 ness of stone, the mind would crave for something. 

 But these fill and content it. Thus reclining, the 

 storm and stress of life dissolve there is no 

 thought, no care, no desire. Somewhat of the 

 Nirvana of the earth beneath the earth which 

 for ever produces and receives back again and yet 

 is for ever at rest enters into and soothes the 

 heart. 



The time slips by, a rook emerges from yonder 

 mass of foliage, and idly floats across, and is hidden 

 in another tree. A whitethroat rises from a bush 

 and nervously discourses, gesticulating with wings 

 and tail, for a few moments. But this is not possible 

 for long; the immense magnetism of London, as I 



