That is like some golden-tongued utterance of the gods; and thousands of
Englishmen, sceptics and believers, have held their breath, abashed, as
its full meaning struck home.

Yes; this mysterious thought that haunts our being as we gaze on the
saddened fields is not aroused by the immediate impression which the
sight gives us; it is too complex, too profound, too mature and
significant. It was framed before birth, and it proceeds direct from the
Father of all souls, with whom we dwelt before we came to this low
earth, and with whom we shall dwell again. If any one ventures to deny
the origin of our marvellous knowledge, our sweet, strange impressions,
it seems to us that he must risk bordering on impiety.

So far then I have wandered from the commonplace sweetness of the shorn
fields, and I almost forgot to speak about the birds. Watch the swallows
as they gather together and talk with their low pretty twitter. Their
parliament has begun; and surely no one who watches their proceedings
can venture to scoff at the transcendental argument which I have just
now stated. Those swift, pretty darlings will soon be flying through
the pitchy gloom of the night, and they will dart over three or four
thousand miles with unerring aim till they reach the far-off spot where
they cheated our winter last year. Some will nest amid the tombs of
Egyptian kings, some will find out rosy haunts in Persia, some will soon
be wheeling and twittering happily over the sullen breast of the rolling
Niger. Who--ah, who guides that flight? Think of it. Man must find his
way by the stars and the sun. Day by day he must use elaborate
instruments to find out where his vessel is placed; and even his
instruments do not always save him from miles of error. But the little
bird plunges through the high gulfs of air and flies like an arrow to
the selfsame spot where it lived before it last went off on the wild
quest over shadowy continents and booming seas. "Hereditary instinct,"
says the scientific man. Exactly so; and, if the swallow unerringly
traverses the line crossed by its ancestors, even though the old land
has long been whelmed in steep-down gulfs of the sea, does not that show
us something? Does it, or does it not, make my saying about the soul
seem reasonable?

I have followed the swallows, but the fieldfares and the buntings must
also go soon. They will make their way South also, though some may go in
leisurely fashion to catch the glorious bur