, blue cranesbill
along the road, big ash-trees along the river, sheep, birds, sunshine,
and showers--somehow contrive to keep themselves in health, to live,
grow, decline, die, be born again, without making a mess or creating a
fuss. The air, under the grey sky, is cool, even cold, with infinite
briskness. And this impression of briskness, by no means excluded by
the sense of utter isolation and repose, is greatly increased by a
special charm of this place, the quantity of birds to listen to and
watch; great blackening flights of rooks from the woods along the
watercourses and sheltered hillsides (for only solitary ashes and
wind-vexed beeches will grow in the open); peewits alighting with
squeals in the fields; blackbirds and thrushes in the thick coverts (I
found a poor dead thrush with a speckled chest like a toad, laid out
among the beech-nuts); wagtails on the shingle, whirling over the
water, where the big trout and salmon leap; every sort of swallow;
pigeons crossing from wood to wood; wild duck rattling up, and
seagulls circling above the stream; nay, two herons, standing
immovable, heraldic, on the grass among the sheep.

In such moments, with that briskness transferred into my feelings,
life seems so rich and various. All pleasant memories come to my mind
like tunes, and with real tunes among them (making one realise that
the greatest charm of music is often when no longer materially
audible). Pictures also of distant places, tones of voice, glance of
eyes of dear friends, visions of pictures and statues, and scraps of
poems and history. More seems not merely to be brought to me, but more
to exist, wherewith to unite it all, within myself.

Such moments, such modes of being, ought to be precious to us; they
and every impression, physical, moral, aesthetic, which is akin to
them, and we should recognise their moral worth. Since it would seem
that even mere bodily sensations, of pure air, bracing temperature,
vigor of muscles, efficiency of viscera, accustom us not merely to
health of our body, but also, by the analogies of our inner workings,
to health of our soul.

II.

How delicate an organism, how alive with all life's dangers, is the
human character; and how persistently do we consider it as the thing
of all others most easily forced into any sort of position, most
safely handled in ignorance! Surely some of the misery, much of the
waste and deadlock of the world are due to our all being made of suc