14 GRAMINI VOILE. 



is ricli and heavy, and the labour of the field drags rather 

 slowly along, where, unless fired by ambition, stimulated 

 by the love of gain, or enticed by luxury, the spirit of man 

 is apt to flag, and he to feel, and to a very considerable 

 extent to be, wretched, from the felt but unspoken contrast 

 of his own insignificance with the abundance in the midst of 

 which he is set, and which magnifies with his advances, so 

 that every day of his life he feels further from the goal of 

 his happiness than he was the day before : in those places, 

 where it would seem as if the very wealth of nature involves 

 one part of mankind in poverty, through the medium of 

 indolence and improvidence, and the constant succession of 

 leaves, and flowers, and winged creatures, as gay and as 

 fleeting as the latter, inspires another portion with anxiety 

 and gloom, the warblers come with their soft songs, and 

 the nightingale chants to soothe the restless mind in the 

 darkling hour. 



On the open champaign again, where nothing breaks the 

 waving green of the summer and the golden yellow of the 

 autumn, save here and there a hedge, a farm-house, a burly 

 liawthorn, or a gnarled oak, which has stood the winds, and 

 stands the record, of centuries, where the furrow is free, and 

 the produce rich but not rank, where men and teams are out 

 by the streak of dawn, the plough slicing away gallantly in 

 one field, the seed-corn rattling against the furrows of an- 

 other, and the harrow following, half buried in a well-prepared 

 and crop-ensuring tilth ; there, nothing can be more in cha- 

 racter with the activity, and high health, and hope, and glee 

 of the Georgic scene, than the sky-lark soaring topmost, and 

 pouring his inspiring song over the whole farm. And he 

 too has his hope. The earth-worms are rich and sweet in 

 that well-manured and laboured earth ; and the roots which 

 lie loves for the bed of his family, though few in number, are 

 all on the surface, clear of mould and ready dried. When 



