1 82 THE SOUTH COUNTRY 



elms before the reaper and the reaping-machines begin 

 to work. The oats and wheat are in tents over all the 

 land. Then, then it is hard not to walk over the brown 

 in the green of August grass. There is a roving spirit 

 everywhere. The very tents of the corn suggest a 

 bivouac. The white clouds coming up out of the yellow 

 corn and journeying over the blue have set their faces 

 to some goal. The traveller's-joy is tangled over the 

 hazels and over the faces of the small chalk-pits. The 

 white beam and the poplar and the sycarriore fluttering 

 show the silver sides of their leaves and rustle farewells. 

 The perfect road that goes without hedges under elms 

 and through the corn says, " Leave all and follow." How 

 the bridges overleap the streams at one leap, or at three, 

 in arches like those of running hounds! The far-scat- 

 tered, placid sunsets pave the feet of the spirit with many 

 a road to joy; the huge, vacant halls of dawn give a sense 

 of godlike power. 



But it is hard to make anything like a truce between 

 these two incompatible desires, the one for going on and 

 on over the earth, the other that would settle for ever, 

 in one place as in a grave and have nothing to do with 

 change. Suppose a man to receive notice of death, it 

 would be hard to decide whether to walk or sail until the 

 end, seeing no man, or none but strangers; or to sit — 

 alone — and by thinking or not thinking to make the 

 change to come as little as is permitted. The two desires 

 will often painfully alternate. Even on these harvest days 

 there is a temptation to take root for ever in some corner 

 of a field or on some hill from which the world and the 

 clouds can be seen at a distance. For the wheat is as 

 red as the most red sand, and up above it tower the elms, 



