340 THE BOOK OF A NATURALIST 
thing, which means that you are occupied with 
seeing mental images and not the sky. An acre 
or so of green linoleum or drugget, drawn evenly 
and smoothly over the ground surrounding a large 
house, would probably have as good an effect as a 
perfectly smooth grass lawn. But into this question 
I am not going any further. I write about lawns 
because there are such things, and I have to see 
them and sometimes live in sight of one. I have 
had one before my eyes for hours this very day 
while staying at a friend’s house in the country. 
A week ago I went up to London for a couple of 
days, and on my return my hostess informed me 
that I had no sooner left than the gardener pre- 
sented himself before her to ask her if now that her 
visitor had gone away for a day or two she would 
allow him to sweep the lawn and make it tidy. 
It was a good-sized lawn, with a group of well- 
grown birches on the west side, and one day in 
early November the south-west wind blew and 
carried thousands of small yellow heart-shaped 
leaves over the green expanse, making it beautiful 
to look at. By and by the gardener came with his 
abhorred brushwood-broom and swept that lovely 
novel appearance away, to my great disgust. Then 
the blessed wind blew again and roared all night, 
swaying the trees and tossing out fresh clouds on 
clouds of the brilliant little leaves all over the 
monotonous sheet of green, and lo! in the morning 
it was beautiful once more. And I stood and 
admired it, and it was like walking on a velvet 
