220 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE 



deeply of the sweet and bitter cup, to experience 

 that pure unfailing delight in literature which some 

 have. Its charm, I fancy, is greatest to those in whom 

 the natural man, deprived in early life of his proper 

 aliment, grows sickly and pale, and perishes at last 

 of inanition. There is ample room then for the latter 

 higher growth — ^the unnatural cultivated man. Lovers 

 of literature are accustomed to say that they find 

 certain works " helpful " to them ; and doubtless, 

 being all intellect, they are right. But we, the less 

 highly developed, are compounded of two natures, 

 and while this spiritual pabulum sustains one, the 

 other and larger nature is starved ; for the larger 

 nature is earthy, and draws its sustenance from 

 the earth. I must look at a leaf, or smell the sod, 

 or touch a rough pebble, or hear some natural 

 sound — if only the chirp of a cricket — or feel the sim 

 or wind or rain on my face. The book itself may 

 spoil the pleasure it was designed to give me, and 

 instead of satisfying my hunger increase it until 

 the craving and sensation of emptiness becomes 

 intolerable. Not any day spent in a library would 

 I live again, but rather some lurid day of labour and 

 anxiety, of strife, or peril, or passion. 



Occupied with this profound question, I scarcely 

 noticed when my shade-sharer, with whom I sym- 

 pathised only too keenly in her restless mood, rose 

 and, lifting the light green curtain, passed out into 



