150 "Through the Wheat" 



Often have I been drawn out to walk down that 

 winding footpath a right of way through the wheat 

 when I should have applied myself to other tasks, 

 unable to resist these magical calls. The walk has 

 thus become very familiar to me. I do not believe 

 that human beings ever entirely escape the liking for 

 hidling corners, which are one of the many delights of 

 infancy. It must be something of this that leads me 

 to seek out enclosed corners where one can listen to 

 the sweet sounds utterly secluded from human sound 

 or companionship, and where one may repose unseen. 

 There are many such corners round this field. Even 

 the walk through it affords half a hidling-place. You 

 walk, as it were, with a solid wall of grain on either 

 side of you, high as your shoulder, and look along a 

 kind of level moving tableland. Mrs. Browning, in 

 " Lady Geraldine's Courtship," says that the heroine's 

 way at a particular point in the story lay through such 



a field : 



" Her path lay through the wheat," 



and a more delicious or more suggestive background 

 you could hardly have. And the concert you now 

 listened to could not be spoiled, like some concerts, 

 even if you indulged a little sympathetic talk with a 

 companion, if you could allow one, for here the singers 

 will not be put out, nor the chorus break down for 

 your impertinence or interruptions, nor will you spoil 

 it for any other listener, however much you may talk. 

 The eye is as much delighted as the ear soothed, 

 consoled, as it were, by the variety all in such a 

 wondrous unison. An ever-moving billowy sea with 

 rhythmic waves stirs on either hand. No more 

 delightful impression, I believe, could be produced 

 than by the effect sometimes of the billowy movement, 



