erfect days, full of life and freshness, with all
the loveliness and without the languors of spring, is to produce in me
a perfectly inconsequent mood of happiness, which is better than any
amount of philosophical consolation. The air, the breeze, the flying
hour are all full of delight. Everything is touched with a fine savour
and quality, whether it be the wide view over the dappled plain, the
blue waters of the lonely dyke, the old farm-house blinking pleasantly
among its barns and outbuildings, the tall church-tower that you see
for miles over the flat, the busy cawing of rooks in the village grove;
the very people that one meets wear a smiling and friendly air, from
the old labourer trudging slowly home, to the jolly, smooth-faced
ploughboy riding a big horse, clanking and plodding down the highway.
One sees the world as it was meant to be made; a life in the open air,
labour among the wide fields, seems the joyful lot of man. The very
food that one eats by the quick-set thorn on the edge of a dyke, where
the fish poise and hang in dark pools, has a finer savour, and is like
a sacrament of peace; hour after hour, from morning to sunset, one can
range without weariness and without care, one's thoughts reduced to a
mere flow of gentle perceptions, murmuring along like a clear stream.
Pleasant, too, is the return home when one swings in at the familiar
gate; and then comes the quiet solitary evening when one recounts the
hoarded store of delicate impressions. Then follow hours of dreamless
sleep, till one wakes again upon a bright world, with the thrushes
fluting in the shrubbery and the morning sun flooding the room.

LVI

It was by what we clumsily call _chance_ but really by what I am
learning to perceive to be the subtlest and prettiest surprises of the
Power that walks beside us, that I found myself in Ely yesterday
morning--the first real day of summer. The air was full of sunshine,
like golden dust, and all the plants had taken a leap forward in the
night, and were unfurling their crumpled flags as speedily as they
might. I came vaguely down to the river, guided by the same good
spirit, and there at the boat-wharf I found a little motor-launch
lying, which could be hired for the day. I took it, like the Lady of
Shalott; but I did not write my name on the prow, because it had
already some silly, darting kind of name. A mild, taciturn man took
charge of my craft; and without delay we clicked and gurgled