the heated hay in the valley and over the
cooler hills alike. It is not enough to be called a hum, and does but
just tremble at the extreme edge of hearing. If the branches wave and
rustle they overbear it; the buzz of a passing bee is so much louder, it
overcomes all of it that is in the whole field. I cannot define it,
except by calling the hours of winter to mind--they are silent; you hear
a branch crack or creak as it rubs another in the wood, you hear the hoar
frost crunch on the grass beneath your feet, but the air is without sound
in itself. The sound of summer is everywhere--in the passing breeze, in
the hedge, in the broad-branching trees, in the grass as it swings; all
the myriad particles that together make the summer are in motion. The
sap moves in the trees, the pollen is pushed out from grass and flower,
and yet again these acres and acres of leaves and square miles of grass
blades--for they would cover acres and square miles if reckoned edge to
edge--are drawing their strength from the atmosphere. Exceedingly minute
as these vibrations must be, their numbers perhaps may give them a volume
almost reaching in the aggregate to the power of the ear. Besides the
quivering leaf, the swinging grass, the fluttering bird's wing, and the
thousand oval membranes which innumerable insects whirl about, a faint
resonance seems to come from the very earth itself. The fervour of the
sunbeams descending in a tidal flood rings on the strung harp of earth.
It is this exquisite undertone, heard and yet unheard, which brings the
mind into sweet accordance with the wonderful instrument of nature.

By the apple tree there is a low bank, where the grass is less tall and
admits the heat direct to the ground; here there are blue flowers--bluer
than the wings of my favourite butterflies--with white centres--the
lovely bird's-eyes, or veronica. The violet and cowslip, bluebell and
rose, are known to thousands; the veronica is overlooked. The ploughboys
know it, and the wayside children, the mower and those who linger in
fields, but few else. Brightly blue and surrounded by greenest grass,
imbedded in and all the more blue for the shadow of the grass, these
growing butterflies' wings draw to themselves the sun. From this island
I look down into the depth of the grasses. Red sorrel spires--deep
drinkers of reddest sun wine--stand the boldest, and in their numbers
threaten the buttercups. To these in the distance they give