WILD FLOWERS. 33 



one dies but passes on the life to another, one sets 

 light to the next, till the ruddy oaks and singing 

 cuckoos call up the tall mowing grass to fringe 

 summer. 



Before I had any conscious thought it was a delight 

 to me to find wild flowers, just to see them. It was 

 a pleasure to gather them and to take them home ; 

 a pleasure to show them to others — to keep them as 

 long as they would live, to decorate the room with 

 them, to arrange them carelessly with grasses, 

 green sprays, tree-bloom — large branches of chestnut 

 snapped off, and set by a picture perhaps. Without 

 conscious thought of seasons and the advancing hours 

 to light on the white wild violet, the meadow orchis, 

 the blue veronica, the blue meadow cranesbill ; feeling 

 the warmth and delight of the increasing sun-rays, 

 but not recognizing whence or why it was joy. All 

 the world is young to a boy, and thought has not 

 entered into it ; even the old men with gray hair do 

 not seem old ; different but not aged, the idea of age 

 has not been mastered. A boy has to frown and 

 study, and then does not grasp what long years mean. 

 The various hues of the petals pleased without any 

 knowledge of colour-contrasts, no note even of colour 

 except that it was bright, and the mind was made 

 happy without consideration of those ideals and hopes 

 afterwards associated with the azure sky above the 

 fir-tree. A fresh footpath, a fresh flower, a fresh 

 delight. The reeds, the grasses, the rushes — unknown 

 and new things at every step — something always to 

 find ; no barren spot anywhere, or sameness. Every 

 day the grass painted anew, and its green seen for 



