THE MAY FIELDS 25 



is suffused with the freshest of yellow, rose, and 

 blue ; and broad, surprising acres of these bewitch- 

 ing hues lie at our very door, coming, as it were, 



" In our winter's heart to build a tower of song." 



Our " laundered bosoms " swell with hymns of 

 praise ; the plains have receded into Memory's 

 darker recesses, and we vote these Alpine meadows 

 to a permanent and foremost place in our affections 

 —so much so, indeed, that, with Theophile Gautier, 

 we unhesitatingly declare (though not, be it said, 

 with quite all the musical exaggeration of his poet 

 spirit) : 



"Mais, inoi, je les prefere aux champs gras et fertiles 

 Qui sont si loin du ciel qu'on n^ voit jamais Dieu."'' 



We know, of course. Divinity is not absent on 

 the plains. When the poet says otherwise it is 

 a tuneful licence with which we are merely tolerant. 

 We quite understand that there is a more moderate 

 meaning behind his extravagance. We know, and 

 everybody acquainted with Alpine circumstance 

 knows, that in the Alps there is a very strong 

 and striking sense of the nearer presence of the 

 Divine in nature. There is a superior and in- 

 describable purity, together with a refinement and 



