298 BIRDS AND MAN 



The strength and persistence of this feeling 

 had a curious effect. It began to seem to me 

 that he who had ceased to live over a century 

 ago, whose "Letters" had been the favourite 

 book of several generations of naturalists, was, 

 albeit dead and gone, in some mysterious way still 

 living. I spent hours groping about in the long 

 rank grass of the churchyard in search of a 

 memorial ; and this, when found, turned out to 

 be a diminutive headstone, in size and shape 

 hke a small, oval dinner-dish half-buried in the 

 earth. I had to go down on my knees, and put 

 aside the rank grass that covered it, just as when 

 we look into a child's face we push back the 

 unkempt hair from its forehead ; and on the 

 small stone were graved the two capitals, " G. W.," 

 and beneath, " 1793," the year of his death. 



Happy the nature-lover who, in spite of fame, 

 is allowed to rest, as White rests, pressed upon 

 by no ponderous stone ; the sweet influences 

 of sun and rain are not kept from him ; even 

 the sound of the wild bird's cry may penetrate 

 to his narrow apartment to gladden his dust ! 



Perhaps there is some truth in the notion 

 that when a man dies he does not wholly die ; 



