8o MY DEVON YEAR 



as willingly, as he warms the wide sea and the 

 sprouting pine-buds. 



I thank Nature for my eyes, that it has pleased her 

 to let me see a little ; and then, plunging curiously 

 into the riddle of the senses, estimate the force and 

 significance of each before this great blue jewel of a 

 world, set in gold and smiling for me, singing for me 

 under the sun. 



Aforetime, when they counted seven senses, there 

 was a fine conceit upon them that a planet dominated 

 each, and that each was compounded from one of the 

 seven properties. Earth gave the sense of feeling ; 

 fire furnished life itself; and water — the musical ele- 

 ment — fitly provided speech. From the air came 

 taste ; from the South wind the sense of smell ; the 

 flowers gave hearing ; and the mist of Heaven was 

 credited with power to produce man's sight. 



My eyes come first : they are the main entrance to 

 a man's brain ; yet this spectacle of sea and sky is 

 not easy to picture without the melody of it also. I 

 thrust my fingers in my ears and look again, and so 

 blot out a wide part of that which serves unconsciously 

 to perfect all. The trees move, but their whisper — 

 the cradle-song of an English wood — is lost to me ; 

 grey gulls patter over the shining sand below, or 

 ride at rest, like constellations of little stars upon the 

 sea, but their melodious mewing, the wild crescendo 

 of sound that echoes in caves and crannies of stone 

 — this proper music of sea-facing cliffs has departed. 

 The lark, shrilling aloft, is also suddenly dumb ; the 



