INTRODUCTION. 



summer burning under the sun, the grass slippery with the heat, lizards 

 darting in and out of the tufts of rushes, and yellow frogs hopping in all directions, 

 the whole horizon quivering, the whole air full of fresh perfume, every sound 

 coming from a long distance; sometimes, when it is stillest, the cuckoo's voice 

 sounding from the thicket which is far away, and then the humble-bee booms by, 

 and the boom dies off into a long hum. In winter the south-west gales roar in 

 from the Atlantic, and bring the voice of the waves with them ; and if you have 

 never stood upon the Cornish moors between October and April, you have yet to 

 learn the meaning of the four letters which make the name of the rough but true 

 friend Wind. Then away over the moors and the sea-coast is reached ; in the 

 north, of purple slate-cliffs with little bays gashed and rifted in their flanks, and 

 the sea the colour of malachite and lapis-lazuli, breaking on the blue-black rocks 

 into foam like molten silver ; and in the south, of broken cliffs and grassy slopes, 

 and hangings of brushwood, and oaks whose leaves are wet with salt spray, and 

 smooth silver sands. 



Back to the moors again. The air is all one song of blithesome larks, though 

 for human sight and sound we listen in vain. Only in one other place, in a vast 

 crowd, is utter solitude. But there the multitude hope with a common hope, joy 

 with a common joy, sorrow with a common sorrow, and if not a face among them 

 look on us with recognition, our heart goes forth into the mighty human heart ; 

 we know that our brotherhood is with the great human family, and our heritage is 

 immortality shared with a multitude which no man can number, our eternal home 

 is filled with many voices like the sound of great waters. Here, under the vast 

 hills, we see our insignificance. Thou, the Maker of this, who hast set fast these 

 mountains and stretched out the heavens above them, what is man that Thou art 

 mindful of him ? We have the answer at our feet. One hand set fast the moun- 

 tains, and fashioned the moss that clothes them. 



The mosses are in thick soft cushions on the rocks, and lying like fur upon the 

 ground ; in the bogs are mats of long, straggling moss, crimson, lilac, whitish 

 brown. The chinks between the rocks are filled up with mosses and their cousin 

 lichens, the hollows are thickly carpeted as for an elfin festival, and tiny caverns 

 among them are decked with lacework, and feathers, and patterns of braidings in 

 and out, and curiously set stars, and green and silver threads interlaced ; and all 

 this wondrous delicacy of wrought work, is the more wondrous because of its 

 contrast with the rough rocks it lies amongst. 



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