hillside, is lost
in the hollow, and presently, without warning, slips over the edge,
crossing swiftly along the green tips. The sunshine follows--the
warmer for its momentary absence. Far, far down in a grassy combe
stands a solitary corn-rick, conical-roofed, casting a lonely
shadow--marked because so solitary--and beyond it, on the rising
slope, is a brown copse. The leafless branches take a brown tint in
the sunlight; on the summit above there is furze; then more
hill-lines drawn against the sky. In the tops of the dark pines at
the corner of the copse, could the glance sustain itself to see
them, there are finches warming themselves in the sunbeams. The
thick needles shelter them from the current of air, and the sky is
bluer above the pines. Their hearts are full already of the happy
days to come, when the moss yonder by the beech, and the lichen on
the fir-trunk, and the loose fibres caught in the fork of an
unbending bough, shall furnish forth a sufficient mansion for their
young. Another broad cloud-shadow, and another warm embrace of
sunlight. All the serried ranks of the green corn bow at the word of
command as the wind rushes over them.

There is largeness and freedom here. Broad as the down and free as
the wind, the thought can roam high over the narrow roofs in the
vale. Nature has affixed no bounds to thought. All the palings, and
walls, and crooked fences deep down yonder are artificial. The
fetters and traditions, the routine, the dull roundabout, which
deadens the spirit like the cold moist earth, are the merest
nothing. Here it is easy with the physical eye to look over the
highest roof, which must also always be the narrowest. The moment
the eye of the mind is filled with the beauty of things natural an
equal freedom and width of view comes to it. Step aside from the
trodden footpath of personal experience, throwing away the petty
cynicism bred of petty hopes disappointed. Step out upon the broad
down beside the green corn, and let its freshness become part of
life.

The wind passes and it bends--let the wind, too, pass over the
spirit. From the cloud-shadow it emerges to the sunshine--let the
heart come out from the shadow of roofs to the open glow of the sky.
High above, the songs of the larks fall as rain--receive it with
open hands. Pure is the colour of the green flags, the slender,
pointed blades--let the thought be pure as the light that shines
through that colour. Broad are the downs and o