As I walk along the old highway, the deepening shadows touch the
familiar landscape with mystery; one landmark after another vanishes
until the lights in the scattered farm-houses gleam like reflected
constellations. A deep silence fills the great heavens and broods over
the wide earth; all things have become dim and strange; and yet I feel
no loneliness in the midst of this star-lit solitude. The heavens
shining over me, and the scattered household fires declare to me that
fellowship of light in which Nature holds out her hand to man and leads
him, step by step, to the unspeakable splendours of her central sun.
Chapter V
The Open Fields
One of the sights upon which my eyes rest oftenest and with deepest
content is a broad sweep of meadow slowly climbing the western sky
until it pauses at the edge of a noble piece of woodland. It is a
playground of wind and flowers and waving grasses. There are, indeed,
days when it lies cold and sad under inhospitable skies, but for the
most part the heavens are in league with cloud and sun to protect its
charm against all comers. When the turf is fresh, all the promise of
summer is in its tender green; a little later, and it is sown thick
with daisies and buttercups; and as the breeze plays upon it these
frolicsome flowers, which have known no human tending, seem to chase
each other in endless races over the whole expanse.
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