DECEMBER 257 



many old, honourable, and poetic associations would be 

 swept away in order to establish the new regime of 

 grain and pot-herbs ! Methinks, were it possible to 

 apply the referendum to our flocks and herds, the reply 

 would come in a fashion on which vegetarians scarcely 

 calculate. From the ground-floor window of a little 

 wayside hostelry in Hampshire I behold a typical 

 English landscape. In the breadth of rich meadow- 

 land stretching away to where a long bank of wood 

 rises dark against the western sky, there are gleams 

 here and there where the light strikes the windings of 

 lucent Itchen, gently dropping from mill to hamlet 

 from hamlet to grey-walled church, till it reaches the 

 towers of sleepy Winchester. The fiery heat of July is 

 mitigated no more by a delicate dappling of cloud 

 in the west ; the other quarters are clear azure. The 

 only restless creatures in view are a bevy of swifts, 

 whirling round the house-gable, gliding under the 

 elms, and with shrill cries, snapping up countless 

 weaker-winged things. Even the ducks on the mill- 

 head are stilled by the heat, and the poultry chuckle 

 drowsily as they revel in the warm grey dust of the 

 roadside. A dappled string of cows completes the 

 peaceful scene, wending leisurely from the wood across 

 the meadow to the stream. Already the leaders are 

 up to their dewlaps in the water; the rearmost low 

 impatiently, urging those in front to move quicker, so 

 that all may enjoy the delicious bath. Here they will 

 stand for an hour, blissfully indolent, nor leave the 

 gentle flood till certain internal cravings prompt them 

 to return to their pasture. Certes, there never was a 



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