Nature and England 



217 



I experienced that "serene exaltation of spirit" of which Burroughs long ago 

 wrote on listening to the hymn of the Hermit Thrush. 



If, in coming thus far to a comparatively unsettled locality, we had thought 

 to enjoy these enchantments undisturbed, we were not long in discovering that 

 there were others who evidently shared our desire for solitude. The motorists 

 who passed us on the highway, bound for parts unknown, at a speed which 

 forbade attention to much of anything besides the effort to retain their head- 

 gear, were not of our kin; but the cyclists who, pedaling along slowly, had 



UNDER THE OAKS AT SELBORNE 



time to enjoy the beauties of the wayside, or who left their wheels here and 

 there to enter field and wood in search of flowers or birds, were not riding for 

 exercise alone; and the pedestrians we encountered were evidently desirous of 

 closer contact with Mother Earth than can be had in an automobile. They 

 passed us in such increasing numbers that we sought the quiet of a lane branch- 

 ing from the main road, but, as the morning wore on, this, too, became populous. 

 The further we went afield, the more people we found before us. Every path 

 had its strollers; from the densest copse one heard voices; and by noontide the 

 open fields were thickly dotted with outers. 



Some had plant-boxes, some bird-glasses, a few butterfly nets, while by far 

 the larger number carried merely their luncheon ; but whatever was the special 



