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WALKS IN THE WHEAT-FIELDS., 147 
sprays of delicate seaweed slow turning from their winter 
outline to the soft green shading of summer ; add to these 
the upspringing of the wheat and its slow coming to that: 
maturity of gold which marks the fulness of the year ; 
consider, then, the incomparable beauty of the mowing 
grass. Now remember that they live among these things, 
and by daily iteration the dullest mind becomes wrapped 
up in and welded to them. Black type on white paper is 
but a flat surface after these. Secondly, the books and 
papers themselves, made and printed in such enormous 
quantities, do not touch a country mind. They have such 
acityfied air. Very correct, very scientific, and extremely 
well edited, but thin in the matter. Something so stagey 
—you may see it, for instance, in the books for children in- 
troducing fairies, which fairies have short skirts, and caper 
about exactly like a pantomime among stage frogs and 
stage mushrooms, and it is quite clear that the artist who 
drew them, and the author who wrote of them, actually 
drew their inspiration from the boards of a theatre. They 
have never dreamed among the cowslips of the real fields, 
they have never watched the ways of the birds from 
under an oak. Children instinctively see that these toy- 
books are not natural, and do not care for them; they 
may be illustrated in gold and colours, simptioucly 
got up, and yet they are failures. Children do not take 
these to bed with them. I have seen this myself ; I bought 
so many books to please children, but could never do it 
till by chance some one sent a little American toy-book, 
‘The History of the Owl and his Little One, and the 
Manceuvres of the Fox.’ This had a little of the spirit of 
the woods in it, and was read and re-read fora year. Only 
the other day a lady was telling me much the same thing, 
how she had bought book after book but could never hit 
on anything to please her little boy, till at last she found 
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