Charles Kingsley in the Saddle. 53 



beneath the lofty roof of the ever-fragrant pine wood, with 

 the creaking of the saddle and the soft footfall of the mare 

 upon the fir-needles jarring upon his ears. He calls this 

 "ugly, straight-edged, monotonous fir plantation," into 

 which he leaps over the furze bank, his Cathedral (how like 

 him to interject " wherein if there be no saints there are 

 likewise no priestcraft and no idols ! "). 



It is glibly said sometimes that we in the old country 

 have lost the art of the lighter and more popular form of 

 essay writing, and bequeathed it to the Hawthorns, Emer* 

 sons, Russell Lowells, and Dudley Warners of the New 

 World. What, then, is this which Kingsley has in his Winter 

 Garden ? — 



" Endless vistas of smooth red, green-veined shafts hold- 

 ing up the warm dark roof, lessening away into endless 

 gloom, paved with rich brown fir-needle, a carpet at which 

 Nature has been at work for forty years. Red shafts, green 

 roof, and here and there a pane of blue sky — neither Owen 

 Jones nor Willement can improve upon that ecclesiastical 

 ornamentation — while for incense I have the fresh healthy 

 turpentine fragrance, far sweeter to my nostrils than the 

 stifling narcotic odour which fills a Roman Catholic Cathe- 

 dral. There is not a breath of air within, but the breeze 

 sighs over the roof above in a soft whisper. I shut my eyes 

 and listen. Surely that is the murmur of the summer sea 

 upon the summer sands in Devon, far away ! I hear the 

 innumerable wavelets spend themselves gently upon the 

 shore and die away to rise again. It has two notes, two 

 keys rather ; that Eolian harp of fir-needles above my head, 

 according as the wind is east or west, the needles wet or 

 dry. This easterly key of to-day is shriller, more cheerful, 

 warmer in sound, though the day itself be colder; but 

 grander still, as well as softer, is the sad soughing key in 



