220 WOOD AND GARDEN 



still air, with only the very gentlest south-westerly 

 breath in it, brings up the mighty boom of the great 

 ship guns from the old seaport, thirty miles away, 

 and the pheasants answer to the sound as they do to 

 thunder. The early summer air is of a perfect tem- 

 perature, the soft coo of the wood-dove comes down 

 from the near wood, the nightingale siags almost over- 

 head, but — either human happiness may never be quite 

 complete, or else one is not philosophic enough to 

 contemn life's lesser evils, for — oh, the midges ! 



