and depth of the summer—to the broad horizon afar, down to the minutest creature in the grass, up to the highest swallow.  Winter shows us Matter in its dead form, like the Primary rocks, like granite and basalt—clear but cold and frozen crystal.  Summer shows us Matter changing into life, sap rising from the earth through a million tubes, the alchemic power of light entering the solid oak; and see! it bursts forth in countless leaves.  Living things leap in the grass, living things drift upon the air, living things are coming forth to breathe in every hawthorn bush.  No longer does the immense weight of Matter—the dead, the crystallized—press ponderously on the thinking mind.  The whole office of Matter is to feed life—to feed the green rushes, and the roses that are about to be; to feed the swallows above, and us that wander beneath them.  So much greater is this green and common rush than all the Alps.

Fanning so swiftly, the wasp’s wings are but just visible as he passes; did he pause, the light would be apparent through their texture.  On the wings of the dragon-fly as he hovers an instant before he darts there is a prismatic gleam.  These wing textures are even more delicate than the minute filaments on a swallow’s quill, more delicate than the pollen of a flower.  They are formed of matter indeed, but how exquisitely it is resolved into the means and organs of life!  Though not often consciously recognized, perhaps this is the great pleasure of summer, to watch the earth, the dead particles, resolving themselves into the living case of life, to see the seed-leaf push aside the clod and become by degrees the perfumed flower.  From the tiny mottled egg come the wings that by-and-by shall pass the immense sea.  It is in this marvellous transformation of clods and cold matter into living things that the joy and the hope of summer reside.  Every blade of grass, each leaf, each separate floret and petal, is an inscription speaking of hope.  Consider the grasses and the oaks, the swallows, the sweet blue butterfly—they are one and all a sign and token showing before our eyes earth made into life.  So that my hope becomes as broad as the horizon afar, reiterated by every leaf, sung on every bough, reflected in the gleam of every flower.  There is so much for us yet to come, so much to be gathered, and enjoyed.  Not for you or me, now, but for our race, who will ultimately use this magical secret for their happiness.  Earth holds secrets enough to give them the life of the fabled Immortals.  My heart is fixed firm and stable in the belief that ultimately the sunshine and the summer, the flowers and the azure sky, shall become, as it were, interwoven into man’s existence.  He shall take from all their beauty and enjoy their glory.  Hence it is that a flower is to me so much more than stalk and petals.  When I look in the glass I see that every line in my face means pessimism; but in spite of my face—that is my experience—I remain an optimist.  Time with an unsteady hand has etched thin crooked lines, and, deepening the hollows, has cast the original expression into shadow.  Pain and sorrow flow over us with little ceasing, as the sea-hoofs beat on the beach.  Let us not look at ourselves but onwards, and take strength from the leaf and the signs of the field.  He is indeed despicable who cannot look onwards to the ideal life of man.  Not to do so is to deny our birthright of mind.

The long grass flowing towards the hedge has reared in a wave against it.  Along the hedge it is higher and greener, and rustles into the very bushes.  There is a mark only now where the footpath was; it passed close to the hedge, but its place is traceable only as a groove in the sorrel and seed-tops.  Though it has quite filled the path, the grass there cannot send its tops so high; it has left a winding crease.  By the hedge here stands a moss-grown willow, and its slender branches extend over the sward.  Beyond it is an oak, just apart from the bushes; then the ground gently