74 THE LIFE OF PHILIP HENRY GOSSE. 



reality. He was in a humour to be pleased with every- 

 thing ; but even if it had not been so, the morning was so 

 fresh and bracing, the hedges so thickly green, and the 

 flowers so sweet after the harsh uplands of Newfoundland, 

 that he could not fail of an ecstasy. In later life my father 

 constantly recalled that delightful morning, which appears 

 to have singularly and deeply moved him with its beauty- 

 " I was brimful of happiness," he said in a letter of a year 

 later (November 16, 1833). "The beautiful and luxuriant 

 hedgerows; the mossy, gnarled oaks; the fields; the flowers; 

 the pretty warbling birds ; the blue sky and bright sun ; the 

 dancing butterflies ; but, above all, the unwonted freedom 

 from a load of anxiety ; — altogether it seemed to my en- 

 chanted senses, just come from dreary Newfoundland, that 

 I was in Paradise. How I love to recall every little 

 incident connected with that first morning excursion ! — the 

 poor brown cranefly, which was the first English insect I 

 caught ; the little grey moth under the oaks at the end of 

 the last field ; the meadow where the Satyridce were sport- 

 ing on the sunny bank ; the heavy fat Musca in Heckford- 

 field hedge, which I in my ignorance called a Bombylius, 

 and the consequent display of entomological lore mani- 

 fested all that day by the family, who frequently repeated 

 the sounding words ' Bombylius bee-fly.' " 



The mother and sister soon returned from Parkstone, 

 and the circle around the table in Skinner Street was once 

 more complete. Philip did not stray three miles from 

 Poole during the whole of his visit. He found little 

 changed in Poole during his five years' absence. "Our 

 lane," which had been a cul-de-sac, was now a thoroughfare, 

 by the turning of the old gardens at the end into new 

 streets, and there was a new Public Library built at the 

 bottom of High Street. Of this Philip was made free, and 

 there he read a good deal. His time was largely spent in 



