, or the
religion of humanity, is a living vigorous plant, and as some believe
flourishes more with the progress of the centuries, it must, like other
"soul-growths," have a deeper, tougher woodier root in our soil.

Chapter Eight: A Gold Day At Silchester

It is little to a man's profit to go far afield if his chief pleasure
be in wild life, his main object to get nearer to the creatures, to grow
day by day more intimate with them, and to see each day some new thing.
Yet the distance has the same fascination for him as for another--the
call is as sweet and persistent in his ears. If he is on a green level
country with blue hills on the horizon, then, especially in the early
morning, is the call sweetest, most irresistible. Come away--come away:
this blue world has better things than any in that green, too familiar
place. The startling scream of the jay--you have heard it a thousand
times. It is pretty to watch the squirrel in his chestnut-red coat among
the oaks in their fresh green foliage, full of fun as a bright child,
eating his apple like a child, only it is an oak-apple, shining white
or white and rosy-red, in his little paws; but you have seen it so many
times--come away:

It was not this voice alone which made me forsake the green oaks of
Silchester and Pamber Forest, to ramble for a season hither and thither
in Wiltshire, Dorset, and Somerset; there was something for me to do
in those places, but the call made me glad to go. And long
weeks--months--went by in my wanderings, mostly in open downland
country, too often under gloomy skies, chilled by cold winds and wetted
by cold rains. Then, having accomplished my purpose and discovered
incidentally that the call had mocked me again, as on so many previous
occasions, I returned once more to the old familiar green place.

Crossing the common, I found that where it had been dry in spring one
might now sink to his knees in the bog; also that the snipe which had
vanished for a season were back at the old spot where they used to
breed. It was a bitter day near the end of an unpleasant summer, with
the wind back in the old hateful north-east quarter; but the sun shone,
the sky was blue, and the flying clouds were of a dazzling whiteness.
Shivering, I remembered the south wall, and went there, since to escape
from the wind and bask like some half-frozen serpent or lizard in the
heat was the highest good one could look for in such weather. To see
anything new