THE DAILY LIFE OF OUE FARM. 115 



tlie woodman's knife ; the top and bottom steps were, 

 however, peculiar in being made with a twisted hazel or 

 honeysuckle vine. The reason for this was obviously 

 that when the ladder is placed against a tree this twisted 

 supple step forms an arc, which slips not as a stiff 

 smooth step would, but which holds the more firmly 

 the greater the weight upon it, as the greater the strain 

 upon it the more it bends towards the shape of a semi- 

 circle. 



Curious is it that these simple men have learnt iii 

 practice a fact, the theory of which it belongs to 

 the highest mathematics to explain. It was very 

 delightful to sit there and watch the swift progress 

 with which, locust-like, the lads shifted from sapling to 

 sapling. 



The subdued sunlight shot gleamily through the 

 thick foliage, producing an exquisite alternation of 

 most lovely light and shade as it fell, fancifully broken, 

 on creeping bramble, the bursting bracken, and the 

 twisted brushwood tangle, tinting all with such delicate 

 exhilarating dyes, as would baffle the pencil of the 

 most skilful artist, whether' he dash in a general effect 

 after the brilliant, dreamy, suggestive style of Turner, 

 or contortedly copy each sprig and leaf with the feebler 

 disciple of the pre-Raphaelite school. 



Could the photographic apparatus give colouring, as 

 it does the network of underwood, one might hope to 

 see such delicious effect reproduced ; but not, I fear, 

 before then. 



My eye ! what an amount of cobalt and opaque white 

 would the fair lady-sketcher vainly daub upon her 

 board, in frantic faithless imitation of that wondrous 

 atmospheric ethereal effect which those blue-bells so 



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