22 mature StuMes in Berkshire, 



seems to slide off from every surface and substance 

 in the landscape, and stream back into space, to 

 ripple and flow, and stand, deep and liquid as that 

 other element, in the deep places of the atmosphere. 

 One realises now the full meaning of the phrase 

 which speaks of a ''flood ^' of light. This is a verit- 

 able luminous deluge. Given forty days of such a 

 downpour, even with the intermitting nights to break 

 the eftect, and the world would sink beneath these 

 waves of sunshine, as in a great deep. 



That was the first feeling which was floated back 

 from the scene which opened from the top of little 

 Pasture Hill. Every distant hill and mountain was 

 swimming in light. Every near fleld and wood was 

 afloat in the same eddying stream. Not since the 

 '' Fiat lux" was pronounced has the earth weltered 

 in a more unfathomed sea of sunshine. One could 

 forgive the impressionists many a vagary, many an 

 extravagance of purple and violet and lavender, many 

 a suppression of other truths about nature in her out- 

 door moods, for the sake of their fidelity and truth 

 in emphasising the aggressiveness of light and the 

 force with which it sometimes thrusts itself upon the 

 sense as a magnificent fact of the landscape, worthy 

 of a thought in and of itself. 



But one may not pause on the hilltop. The 

 valley tempts the vagrant feet on over the two 

 fences to the fair slope of a cleared hill beyond. It is 

 a favourite stroll and never so enticing as when this 

 August sunlight glorifies and transfigures it. The 



