NATURE IN ENGLAND. 29 



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ably fifteen centuries ago. No wheels but those of 

 time pass over it in these later centuries, and these 

 seem to be driven slowly and gently in this land, 

 with but little wear and tear to the ancient high- 

 ways. 



England is not a country of granite and marble, 

 but of chalk, marl, and clay. The old Plutonic gods 

 do not assert themselves ; they are buried and turned 

 to dust, and the more modern humanistic divinities 

 bear sway. The land is a green cemetery of extinct 

 rude forces. Where the highway or the railway 

 gashed the hills deeply, I could seldom tell where 

 the soil ended and the rock began, as they gradually 

 assimilated, blended, and became one. 



And this is the key to nature in England : 't is 

 granite grown ripe and mellow and issuing in grass 

 and verdure ; 't is aboriginal force and fecundity be- 

 come docile and equable and mounting toward higher 

 forms, the harsh, bitter rind of the earth grown 

 sweet and edible. There is such body and substance 

 in the color and presence of things that one thinks 

 the very roots of the grass must go deeper than 

 usual. The crude, the raw, the discordant, where 

 are they ? It seems a comparatively short and easy 

 step from nature to the canvas or to the poem in this 

 cozy land. Nothing need be added ; the idealization 

 has already taken place. The Old World is deeply 

 covered with a kind of human leaf-mould, while the 

 New is for the most part yet raw, undigested hard- 

 pan. This is why these scenes haunt one like a 



