29 chapters
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29 chapters
PREFACE.
PREFACE.
For permission to reprint my husband's latest Essays my sincere thanks are due to the Editors of the following publications:— The Fortnightly Review. Manchester Guardian. Pall Mall Gazette. Standard. English Illustrated Magazine. Longman's Magazine. St. James's Gazette. Art Journal. Chambers's Journal. Magazine of Art. Century Illustrated Magazine. J.J. HOURS OF SPRING NATURE AND BOOKS THE JULY GRASS WINDS OF HEAVEN THE COUNTRY SUNDAY THE COUNTRY-SIDE: SUSSEX SWALLOW-TIME BUCKHURST PARK HOUSE-MA
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HOURS OF SPRING.
HOURS OF SPRING.
It is sweet on awaking in the early morn to listen to the small bird singing on the tree. No sound of voice or flute is like to the bird's song; there is something in it distinct and separate from all other notes. The throat of woman gives forth a more perfect music, and the organ is the glory of man's soul. The bird upon the tree utters the meaning of the wind—a voice of the grass and wild flower, words of the green leaf; they speak through that slender tone. Sweetness of dew and rifts of sunsh
27 minute read
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NATURE AND BOOKS.
NATURE AND BOOKS.
What is the colour of the dandelion? There are many dandelions: that which I mean flowers in May, when the meadow-grass has started and the hares are busy by daylight. That which flowers very early in the year has a thickness of hue, and is not interesting; in autumn the dandelions quite change their colour and are pale. The right dandelion for this question is the one that comes about May with a very broad disc, and in such quantities as often to cover a whole meadow. I used to admire them very
26 minute read
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THE JULY GRASS.
THE JULY GRASS.
A July fly went sideways over the long grass. His wings made a burr about him like a net, beating so fast they wrapped him round with a cloud. Every now and then, as he flew over the trees of grass, a taller one than common stopped him, and there he clung, and then the eye had time to see the scarlet spots—the loveliest colour—on his wings. The wind swung the bennet and loosened his hold, and away he went again over the grasses, and not one jot did he care if they were Poa or Festuca , or Bromus
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WINDS OF HEAVEN.
WINDS OF HEAVEN.
The window rattled, the gate swung; a leaf rose, and the kitten chased it, 'whoo-oo'—the faintest sound in the keyhole. I looked up, and saw the feathers on a sparrow's breast ruffled for an instant. It was quiet for some time; after a while it came again with heavier purpose. The folded shutters shook; the latch of the kitchen door rattled as if some one were lifting it and dropped it; indefinite noises came from upstairs: there was a hand in the house moving everything. Another pause. The kitt
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THE COUNTRY SUNDAY
THE COUNTRY SUNDAY
. Roses bloomed on every bush, and some of the great hawthorns up which the briars had climbed seemed all flowers. The white and pink-white petals of the June roses adhered all over them, almost as if they had been artificially gummed or papered on so as to hide the leaves. Such a profusion of wild-rose bloom is rarely seen. On the Sunday morning, as on a week-day morning, they were entirely unnoticed, and might be said in their turn to take no heed of the sanctified character of the day. With a
37 minute read
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THE COUNTRY-SIDE: SUSSEX.
THE COUNTRY-SIDE: SUSSEX.
On the wall of an old barn by the great doors there still remains a narrow strip of notice-board, much battered and weather-beaten: 'Beware of steel ——' can be read, the rest has been broken off, but no doubt it was 'traps.' 'Beware of steel traps,' a caution to thieves—a reminiscence of those old days which many of our present writers and leaders of opinion seem to think never existed. When the strong labourer could hardly earn 7 s . a week, when in some parishes scarcely half the population go
25 minute read
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SWALLOW-TIME
SWALLOW-TIME
The cave-swallows have come at last with the midsummer-time, and the hay and white clover and warm winds that breathe hotly, like one that has been running uphill. With the paler hawkweeds, whose edges are so delicately trimmed and cut and balanced, almost as if made by cleft human fingers to human design, whose globes of down are like geometrical circles built up of facets, instead of by one revolution of the compasses. With foxglove, and dragon-fly, and yellowing wheat; with green cones of fir
11 minute read
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BUCKHURST PARK.
BUCKHURST PARK.
An old beech tree had been broken off about five feet from the ground, and becoming hollow within, was filled with the decay of its own substance. In this wood-sorrel had taken root, and flower and leaf covered the space within, white flower and green leaf flourishing on old age. The wood-sorrel leaf, the triune leaf, is perhaps more lovely even than the flower, like a more delicately shaped clover of a tenderer green, and it lasts far on into the autumn. When the violet leaves are no more looke
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HOUSE-MARTINS.
HOUSE-MARTINS.
Of five houses, a stable, and chapel wall, much frequented by martins, the aspects were as follows:—House No. 1, nests on the north side, south side, and east, both the south and east very warm; No. 2, on the south and east walls—these walls met in an angle, and as it were enclosed the sunbeams, making it very heated sometimes; No. 3, on the south and west walls, the warmest sides of the building; No. 4, all along under the southern eaves, a very warm wall; No. 5, also under the southern eaves,
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AMONG THE NUTS.
AMONG THE NUTS.
The nuts are ripening once more, and it is almost the time to go a-gipsying—the summer passes like the shadow of a cloud which strikes the edge of the yellow wheat and comes over and is gone; it does not give you time to rub out a single ear of corn. Before it is possible to gather the harvest of thought and observation the summer has passed, and we must bind the hastily stitched book with the crimson leaves of autumn. Under these very hazel boughs only yesterday, i.e. in May, looking for cuckoo
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WALKS IN THE WHEAT-FIELDS.
WALKS IN THE WHEAT-FIELDS.
If you will look at a grain of wheat you will see that it seems folded up: it has crossed its arms and rolled itself up in a cloak, a fold of which forms a groove, and so gone to sleep. If you look at it some time, as people in the old enchanted days used to look into a mirror, or the magic ink, until they saw living figures therein, you can almost trace a miniature human being in the oval of the grain. It is narrow at the top, where the head would be, and broad across the shoulders, and narrow
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JUST BEFORE WINTER.
JUST BEFORE WINTER.
A rich tint of russet deepened on the forest top, and seemed to sink day by day deeper into the foliage like a stain; riper and riper it grew, as an apple colours. Broad acres these of the last crop, the crop of leaves; a thousand thousand quarters, the broad earth will be their barn. A warm red lies on the hill-side above the woods, as if the red dawn stayed there through the day; it is the heath and heather seeds; and higher still, a pale yellow fills the larches. The whole of the great hill g
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LOCALITY AND NATURE.
LOCALITY AND NATURE.
By the side of the rivers of Exmoor there grows a great leaf, so large it almost calls to mind those tropical leaves of which umbrellas and even tents are made. This is of a rounder shape than those of the palm, it is an elephant's ear among the foliage. The sweet river slips on with a murmuring song, for these are the rivers of the poets, and talk in verse for ever. Purple-tinted stones are strewn about the shallows flat like tiles, and out among the grass and the white orchis of the meadow. Th
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COUNTRY PLACES.
COUNTRY PLACES.
High up and facing every one who enters a village there still remains an old notice-board with the following inscription:—'All persons found wandering abroad, lying, lodging, or being in any barn, outhouse, or in the open air, and not giving a good account of themselves, will be apprehended as rogues and vagabonds, and be either publicly whipt or sent to the house of correction, and afterwards disposed of according to law, by order of the magistrates. Any person who shall apprehend any rogue or
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FIELD WORDS AND WAYS.
FIELD WORDS AND WAYS.
The robin, 'jolly Robin!' is an unlucky bird in some places. When the horse-chestnut leaves turn scarlet the redbreast sings in a peculiarly plaintive way, as if in tone with the dropping leaves and the chill air that follows the early morning frost. You may tell how much moisture there is in the air in a given place by the colours of the autumn leaves; the horse-chestnut, scarlet near a stream, is merely yellowish in drier soils. Cock robin sings the louder for the silence of other birds, and i
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COTTAGE IDEAS.
COTTAGE IDEAS.
Passing by the kitchen door, I heard Louisa, the maid, chanting to a child on her knee: To rightly understand this rhyme you must sing it with long-drawn emphasis on each word, lengthening it into at least two syllables; the first a sort of hexameter, the second a pentameter of sound: The last line is to come off more trippingly, like an 'aside.' This old sing-song had doubtless been handed down from the times when the labourers really did steal sheep, a crime happily extinct with cheap bread. L
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APRIL GOSSIP
APRIL GOSSIP
The old woman tried to let the cuckoo out of the basket at Heathfield fair as usual on the 14th; but there seems to have been a hitch with the lid, for he was not heard immediately about the country. Just before that two little boys were getting over a gate from a hop-garden, with handfuls of Lent lilies—a beautiful colour under the dark sky. They grow wild round the margin of the hop garden, showing against the bare dark loam; gloomy cloud over and gloomy earth under. 'Sell me a bunch?' 'No, no
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SOME APRIL INSECTS.
SOME APRIL INSECTS.
A black humble-bee came to the white hyacinths in the garden on the sunny April morning when the yellow tulip opened, and as she alighted on the flower there hovered a few inches in the rear an eager attendant, not quite so large, more grey, and hovering with the shrillest vibration close at hand. The black bee went round the other side of a bunch of hyacinths, and was hidden in the bell of a purple one. At thus temporarily losing sight of her, the follower, one might say, flew into a state of e
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THE TIME OF YEAR.
THE TIME OF YEAR.
The Emperor moth came out on the 2nd of April, and suddenly filled the cardboard box like the noonday phantom in the sunshine, so unexpected and wonderful. His wings, which as he rests are spread open, stretched from one side of the box to the other, hovering over his old home, a beautiful grey tipped with pink, and peacock-eyed, ring within ring. He clung to the piece of heather upon which the caterpillar was found seven months before, and which he had fixed in the threads of his cocoon. The im
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MIXED DAYS OF MAY AND DECEMBER
MIXED DAYS OF MAY AND DECEMBER
In a sheltered spot the cuckoo was first heard on April 29, but only for one day; then, as the wind took up its accustomed northerly drift again, he was silent. The first chimney swallows (four) appeared on April 25, and were quickly followed by a number. They might be said to be about three weeks behind time, and the cuckoo a fortnight. The chiffchaff uttered his clear yet rather sad notes on April 26. The same morning at five o'clock there had been a slight snow shower, but it was a sunny day.
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THE MAKERS OF SUMMER.
THE MAKERS OF SUMMER.
The leaves are starting here and there from green buds on the hedge, but within doors a warm fire is still necessary, when one day there is a slight sound in the room, so peculiar, and yet so long forgotten, that though we know what it is, we have to look at the object before we can name it. It is a house-fly, woke up from his winter sleep, on his way across to the window-pane, where he will buzz feebly for a little while in the sunshine, flourishing best like a hothouse plant under glass. By-an
14 minute read
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STEAM ON COUNTRY ROADS.
STEAM ON COUNTRY ROADS.
Losses year after year and increasing competition indicate that the crops now grown are not sufficient to support the farmer. When he endeavours, however, to vary his method of culture, and to introduce something new, he is met at the outset by two great difficulties which crush out the possibility of enterprise. The first of these—the extraordinary tithe—has already come into prominent notice; the second is really even more important—it is the deficiency of transit. An extensive use of steam on
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FIELD SPORTS IN ART. THE MAMMOTH HUNTER.
FIELD SPORTS IN ART. THE MAMMOTH HUNTER.
The most ancient attempt to delineate the objects of sport in existence is, I think, the celebrated engraving of a mammoth on a portion of a mammoth's tusk. I call it an engraving because the figure is marked out with incised lines such as the engraver makes with his tool, and it is perfect enough to print from. If it were inked and properly manipulated it would leave an impression—an artist's proof the most curious and extraordinary in the world, for the block was cut with flint instruments by
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BIRDS' NESTS
BIRDS' NESTS
'Perfectly lovely!' 'Such pretty colours!' 'So neat; isn't it wonderful how the little things do it with their beaks?' 'The colours are so arranged as to conceal it; the instinct is marvellous;' and so on. These comments were passed on a picture of a bird's nest—rather a favourite subject with amateur painters. The nest was represented among grass, and was tilted aside so as to exhibit the eggs, which would have rolled out had they been real. It was composed of bright-green moss with flowers int
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NATURE IN THE LOUVRE.
NATURE IN THE LOUVRE.
Turning to the left on entering the Louvre, I found myself at once among the sculpture, which is on the ground-floor. Except that the Venus of Milo was in the collection, I had no knowledge of what I was about to see, but stepped into an unknown world of statuary. Somewhat indifferently I glanced up and then down, and instantly my coolness was succeeded by delight, for there, in the centre of the gallery, was a statue in the sense in which I understand the word—the beautiful made tangible in hum
16 minute read
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SUMMER IN SOMERSET.
SUMMER IN SOMERSET.
The brown Barle River running over red rocks aslant its course is pushed aside, and races round curving slopes. The first shoot of the rapid is smooth and polished like a gem by the lapidary's art, rounded and smooth as a fragment of torso, and this convex undulation maintains a solid outline. Then the following scoop under is furrowed as if ploughed across, and the ridge of each furrow, where the particles move a little less swiftly than in the hollow of the groove, falls backwards as foam blow
28 minute read
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AN ENGLISH DEER-PARK.
AN ENGLISH DEER-PARK.
There is an old park wall which follows the highway in all its turns with such fidelity of curve that for some two miles it seems as if the road had been fitted to the wall. Against it hawthorn bushes have grown up at intervals, and in the course of years their trunks have become almost timber. Ivy has risen round some of these, and, connecting them with the wall, gives them at a distance the appearance of green bastions. Large stems of ivy, too, have flattened themselves upon the wall, as if wi
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MY OLD VILLAGE.
MY OLD VILLAGE.
'John Brown is dead,' said an aged friend and visitor in answer to my inquiry for the strong labourer. 'Is he really dead?' I asked, for it seemed impossible. 'He is. He came home from his work in the evening as usual, and seemed to catch his foot in the threshold and fell forward on the floor. When they picked him up he was dead.' I remember the doorway; a raised piece of wood ran across it, as is commonly the case in country cottages, such as one might easily catch one's foot against if one di
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