This is almost the only passage in the poem in which something of the vastness of visible nature is conveyed. He saw the vastness only in the sky on nights with a full moon or when he made a telescope of his hat to watch the flight of the lark. It was not a hilly country about his native place, and his horizon was a very limited one, usually bounded by the hedgerow timber at the end of the level field. The things he depicts were seen at short range, and the poetry, we see, was of a very modest kind. It was a "humble note" which pleased me in the days of long ago when I was young and very ignorant, and as it pleases me still it may be supposed that mentally I have not progressed with the years. Nevertheless, I am not incapable of appreciating the greater music; all that is said in its praise, even to the extremest expressions of admiration of those who are moved to a sense of wonder by it, find an echo in me. But it is not only a delight to me to listen to the lark singing at heaven's gate and to the vesper nightingale in the oak copse--the singer of a golden throat and wondrous artistry; I also love the smaller vocalists--the modest shufewing and the lesser whitethroat and the yellowhammer with his simple chant. These are very dear to me: their strains do not strike me as trivial; they have a lesser distinction of their own and I would not miss them from the choir. The literary man will smile at this and say that my paper is naught but an idle exercise, but I fancy I shall sleep the better tonight for having discharged this ancient debt which has been long on my conscience. Chapter Twenty-Five: My Friend Jack My friend rack is a retriever--very black, very curly, perfect in shape, but just a retriever; and he is really not my friend, only he thinks he is, which comes to the same thing. So convinced is he that I am his guide, protector, and true master, that if I were to give him a downright scolding or even a thrashing he would think it was all right and go on just the same. His way of going on is to make a companion of me whether I want him or not. I do not want him, but his idea is that I want him very much. I bitterly blame myself for having made the first advances, although nothing came of it except that he growled. I met him in a Cornish village in a house where I stayed. There was a nice kennel there, painted green, with a bed of clean straw and an empty plate which had contained his dinner, but on peeping in I saw no dog. Next day it was the same, and the next, and the day after that; then I inquired about it--Was there a dog in that house or not? Oh, yes, certainly there was: Jack, but a very independent sort of dog. On most days he looked in, ate his dinner and had a nap on his straw, but he was not what you would call a home-keeping dog.