It was a wonderful morning, that. How quiet it was, how peaceful! Those mighty mountains were so still, so soundless. When I was out of sight of the cattle, the only noise that reached my ear was the hum of the bee at my elbow, the song of the lark overhead. Nature seemed at peace. Nature seemed to fraternise with Man. A great comradeship was abroad. With my own eyes I saw three cows come to their keeper's side, close up to him, and he, kind soul, stroked their soft and wrinkled cheeks. With my own eyes I saw a young and curious heifer walk up to the recumbent dog--her deputy-herdsman--and sniff his hide; and he, good creature, never twitched an ear!--though presently he did move off, moving somewhat stiffly, as if his dignity had been ruffled. * * * * * And the flowers at my feet, on every side! It was not grass I lay on; it was blossoms--lovely scented blossoms; and as I looked along the slopes it was flowers I saw, not blades of grass: it was on a purfled plain I lay, a plain of blue and green and yellow and purple.--At first I could hardly bring myself to crush these buds. I kept to cart tracks, to cattle-paths. But in time these ceased, and I could not choose but crush. And then ... came a curious thought; one I hardly like to put on paper. Yet of itself it came, and some perhaps will interpret it as reverently as did I.--Nature was in repentant mood, and, like the Magdalen, was once again bedewing Man's feet with her tears, and bescenting them with her spikenard. She made amends, as it were, for her treatment of Man.--Fickle, feminine Nature, from whose loins we come, from whose breast we suck our livelihood; from whom we wrest our pleasure--with much cost--much cost and strife.... § 59