LATER ESSAYS 223 



the stream ? Not the blackened reaper only, but the 

 crowd whose low hum renders the fountain inaudible, the 

 nameless and unknown crowd of this immense city 

 wreathed round about the central square. I hope 

 that at some time, by dint of bolder thought and freer 

 action, the world shall see a race able to enjoy it without 

 stint, a race able to enjoy the colours of the garden of 

 life. To look backwards with the swallow there is sad- 

 ness, to-day with the fleck of cloud there is unrest ; 

 but forward, with the broad sunlight, there is hope. . . .' 



Then there are the passages where he is interested in 

 his own impressions, but has not advanced to a full 

 artistic use of them — as, for example, when he tells us of 

 the sense of wildness coming at the touch of the Reed 

 Canary Grass, or where he says that there is no purple in 

 ripe wheat which can be seen if it is looked for specially, 

 ' but when the distant beams of sunlight travelling over 

 the hill swept through the rich ripe grain, for a moment 

 there was a sense of purple on the retina.' The honesty 

 and exactness of that guarantee the quality of his work 

 and of his observation. 



One piece of advice to those who would observe he repeats 

 several times : summer and winter keep in one place, 

 because in the course of a year every creature that is not 

 thoroughly local will pass over any given spot. It was 

 probably his own habit more and more, for though in a 

 letter written late in his life at Crowborough he speaks 

 of knowing the whole range of the South Downs, he was 

 compelled by ill-health to walk less and less. His earlier 

 writings were the work of a walker ; the later are the work 

 of one who lies or sits. 



