28 ELLEN AT KELMSCOTT 



nice or nasty. No doubt there are exceptions among 

 women to this ancient hostiHty to the wind; one can 

 even believe that the Ellen of l^ews from Nowhere 

 was not wholly evolved from the author's inner 

 consciousness, when he tells us how she laid her 

 brown hand and arm on the old lichened brick wall 

 of Kelmscott Manor as if to embrace it, and cried: 

 " O me! O me! how I love the earth, and the seasons 

 and weather and all things that deal with it and grow 

 out of it." I know one myself who delights above all 

 things in long walks in a strong wind, who wears a 

 cap and close-fitting costume — a form of dress as 

 suitable,' without being ugly, to all weathers as that 

 of a man. 



Such women are rare, and it is a sad thought that 

 our system of life, our devotion to comfort, which 

 adds and adds and goes on everlastingly adding to 

 the attractions of an indoor existence, has the inevit- 

 able effect of making Nature increasingly strange 

 and hostile to us. 



I think in this connection of our poetical literature : 

 how have our poets, for example, treated this subject 

 of the wind ? T. E. Brown thought the sea " the great 

 challenger and promoter of song." This seems natural 

 enough in an islander — and the Isle of Man is even 

 smaller than England. Swinburne was never happier 

 than when splashing about in the ocean, and he offers 

 to exchange lots with the seamew, to give him his 

 — Swinburne's — songs' wild honey in exchange for 

 the seamew's sunny wide eyes that search the sea and 

 wings that weary never. Then, he said, it would be 



