CHAPTER III 



OF WILD GARDENS 



Is it a sign that a renewal of youth is coming upon 

 this old world that the past century should have 

 witnessed a great upwelling of the love of what 

 we comprehensively call Nature? The eyes of 

 many have been opened as never before to see 

 new beauty and new wonders in earth and air 

 and sea. Our ears catch echoes of voices long 

 unheeded. The restless activity and stress of life 

 is, in some degree, working out its own redemp- 

 tion. For there is surely a spirit abroad making 

 for rest, for greater simplicity. It asks for leisure 

 to think, an occasional breathing space of silence. 

 There are some who are gladly ready when they 

 may to steal away from busy haunts, from the 

 noise and strain of the thoroughfare and the mart, 

 to betake themselves to forest, or river, or lonely 

 moor not to destroy or disturb the restful har- 

 mony that is there, but to listen and to learn. To 

 such the solitude of the woodland is no solitude, 

 it is peopled with life and colour and melody. 

 The silence of the everlasting hills is no silence, 

 for the air is full of speech. Flowers, in untended 

 beauty, are eloquent with their own sweet story. 

 Each flitting bird and humming beetle sings its 

 glad song of life to the ear attuned to hear. The 

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