158 THE LIFE OF RICHARD JEFFERIES 



squires and tradesmen ; and over all this land, in defiance 

 of laws of trespass, they fly and run and creep, careless 

 of men, though admitting ' dear little vSir Bevis ' to the 

 council because he has power over fire and has a cannon. 

 That is a generous conception, with many delightful 

 results. And if the birds are usually human beings 

 with beaks and wings, one of the grasshoppers at least 

 is pretty clearly Jefferies himself, answering Bevis, 

 who has asked why all the birds go down to bathe on 

 Midsummer Day : 



' " Why ?" repeated the grasshopper ; " I never heard 

 anybody say anything about that before. There is 

 always a great deal of talking going on, for the trees have 

 nothing else to do but to gossip with each other ; but 

 they never ask why, ..." 



' " Why don't you hop straight ?" said Bevis 

 presently. . . . 



' " How very stupid you are !" said the grasshopper. 

 " If you go straight, of course you can only see just what 

 is under your feet ; but if you go first this way and then 

 that, then you see everything. You are nearly as silly 

 as the ants, who never see anything beautiful all their 

 lives. Be sure you have nothing to do with the ants, 

 Bevis ; they are a mean, wretched, miserly set, quite 

 contemptible and beneath notice. Now, I go every- 

 where all round the field, and spend my time searching 

 for lovely things ; sometimes I find flowers, and some- 

 times the butterflies come down into the grass and tell 

 me the news ; and I am so fond of the sunshine, I sing 

 to it all day long. Tell me, now, is there anything so 

 beautiful as the sunshine and the blue sky, and the green 

 grass, and the velvet and blue and spotted butterflies, 

 and the trees which cast such a pleasant shadow and 

 talk so sweetly, and the brook which is always running ? 

 I should like to listen to it for a thousand years." ' * 



The Reed is even more like Jeft'eries : 



' There is no why at all. We have been hstening to the 



* IVood Mai(ic. 



