LETTER XL 



UPON MY SACK. 



I AM, at this moment, stretched upon a grassy bank sprinkled 

 with violets, beneath a great oak which shelters me from the 

 sun; I cannot imagine any change sufficiently agreeable to 

 induce me to quit this position. I am upon my back, more 

 than half bui-ied in grass ; my two arms, crossed behind my 

 head, elevate it a little ; the thick foliage of the oak forms 

 a green transparent tent over me ; between certain branches 

 I catch blue patches of the heavens, I hear a thousand noises 

 in the air, a chaffinch twitters at the summit of the tree, bees 

 buzz around me, some soft puffs of a cooling wind just stir the 

 trees; I listen, and I look around me. Across the blue 

 heavens pass long flocks of silk, whiter than anything we are 

 acquainted with, and which float languidly in the air, sinking 

 and rising ; this is what the country people call the Virgin's 

 thread; saying that they are threads escaped from the distaff 



