OUTSIDE LONDON, 243 



a loving hand will soothe a weary forehead, so the 

 gentle pressure of the wild grass soothes and strokes 

 away the nervous tension born of civilized life. 



I could write a whole history of it ; the time when 

 the leaves were fresh and green, and the sedge-birds 

 frequented it ; the time when the moorhen's young 

 crept after their mother through its recesses ; from 

 the singing of the cuckoo by the river, till now 

 brown and yellow leaves strew the water. They 

 strew, too, the dry brown grass of the land, thick 

 tuffets, and lie even among the rushes, blown hither 

 from the distant trees. The wind works its full will 

 over the exposed waste, and drives through the reed- 

 grass, scattering the stalks aside, and scarce giving 

 them time to spring together again, when the follow- 

 ing blast a second time divides them. 



A cruder piece of ground, ruder and more dismal 

 in its unsightly holes, could not be found ; and yet, 

 because of the reed-grass, it is made as it were full 

 of thought. I wonder the painters, of whom there 

 are so many nowadays, armies of amateurs, do not 

 sometimes take these scraps of earth and render into 

 them the idea which jfiUs a clod with beauty. In one 

 such dismal pit — not here — I remember there grew 

 a great quantity of bulrushes. Another was sur- 

 rounded with such masses of swamp-foliage that it 

 reminded those who saw it of the creeks in semi- 

 tropical countries. But somehow they do not seem 

 to see these things, but go on the old mill-round ol 

 scenery, exhausted many a year since. They do not 

 see them, perhaps, because most of those who have 

 educated themselves in the technique of painting are 



