stimate their separate and joint work upon that vast
landscape. A few centuries ago, perhaps about the time that the
Mayflower sighted Plymouth Rock, this valley, now so indescribably
beautiful, was almost in the state of nature. Wolves and wild boars
may have been prowling about in the woods and tangled thickets that
covered this ridge back for several leagues. Bushes, bogs and
briers, and coarse prairie grass roughened the bottom of this
valley; matted heather, furze, broom and clumps of shrubby trees,
all those hills and uplands arising in the background to the
northward horizon. This declining sun, and the moon and stars that
will soon follow in the pathway of its chariot, like a liveried
cortege, shone upon that scene with all the light they will give
this day and night. The rain and dew, and all the genial ministries
of the seasons, did their unaided best to make it lovely and
beautiful. The sweetest singing-birds of England came and tried to
cheer its solitude with their happy voices. The summer breezes came
with their softest breath, whispering through brake, bush and brier
the little speeches of Nature's life. The summer bees came and
filled all those heather-purpled acres with their industrial lays,
and sang a merry song in the door of every wild-flower that gave
them the petalled honey of its heart. All the trained and
travelling industrials and all the sweet influences of Nature came
and did all they could without man's help to make this great valley
most delightful to the eye. But the wolves still prowled and
howled; the briers grew rough and rank; the grass, coarse and thin;
the heathered hills were oozy and cold in their watery beds; the
clumpy, shrubby trees wore the same ragged coats of moss; and no
feature of the scene mended for the better from year to year.

Then came the great Blind Painter, with his rude, iron pencils, to
the help of Nature. He came with the Axe, Plough and Spade, her
mightiest allies. With these he had driven wild Druidic Paganism
back mile by mile from England's centre; back into her dark
fastnesses. With the Axe, Spade and Plough he chased the foul
beasts and barbarisms from the island. Two centuries long was he in
painting this Beautiful Valley. Nature ground and mixed the colors
for him all the while, for he was blind. He was poor; often cold
and hungry, and his children, with blue fingers and pale, silent
eyes, sometimes asked for bread in winter he could not