PREFACE 



How often one may hear people who enjoy com- 

 mand of their own time complain of the dullness 

 of life in the country. Poets, children, lovers, and 

 a few other abnormal individuals, derive constant 

 solace from the seasons ; but modern life in England 

 has been arranged with studied indifference to 

 them. Man slowest among vertebrate animals to 

 attain maturity, yet whose years are but as a span 

 compared with those of the oak or lowly lichen 

 man, leaden-footed among beasts, wingless among 

 fowls a poor climber a bad swimmer has shown 

 his discontent with Nature by devising a scheme 

 of civilisation to make him independent of her 

 infinite changefulness. Artificial illuminants have 

 rendered him indifferent to the radiance of rising 

 and setting suns; neither storm nor shine are 



ftff / 



53 

 , I 



