she rolled to the ground and the butcher once more let loose the heavy scent of blood. The wholesome pretty beast, the familiar “Come along, Daisy!” and the blow and the scent came often into Jones’ mind. He ate no meat, but made no attempt to proselytize; he simply retreated deeper and deeper into his childlike love of Nature. The birds and the flowers and the creeping and running things he seemed to regard as little happy, charming, undeveloped human beings, looking down on them with infinite tenderness and a little amusement; with them alone was he quite at home. Nature, as she presented herself to his simple senses, was but a fragrant, many-coloured, exuberant, chiefly joyous community, with which most men were not in harmony. Silent for days and thinking only “green thoughts” under the branches of the wood, he came to demand, unconsciously, that there should be such a harmony. But he loved Nature also because she had no ambiguity, told no lies, uttered no irony. Sitting among flowers by running water he wore an expression of blessed satisfaction with his company which is not often seen at the friendliest table. He drew no philosophy from Nature, no opinions, ideas, proposals for reform, but only the wisdom to live, happily and healthily and simply, himself. I dare say modernity was in his blood, but no man seemed to belong less to our time. Of history and science he knew nothing, of literature nothing; he had to make out the earth with his own eyes and heart. He had not words for it, but he felt that whatever he touched was God. No myth or religion had any value to him. There were no symbols for him to use. The deities he surmised or smelt or tasted in the air or upon the earth had neither name nor shape. Had he been able to think, he was the man to put our generation on the way to a new mythology. For all I know, he had the vision, the power of the seer, without the power of the prophet. A little more and perhaps he would have invaded Christendom as St. Paul invaded Heathendom. Yet I think he was not wholly the loser by being unable to think. The eye untroubled by thought sees things like a mirror newly burnished; at night, for example, the musing man can see nothing before him but a mist, but if he stops thinking quickly the roads, the walls, the trees become visible. So this man saw with a clearness as of Angelico, and in his memory violets and roses, trees and faces were as clear as if within his brain were another sun to light them. He had but to close his eyes to see these things, an innumerable procession of days and their flowers and their birds in the sky or on the bough. And this he had at no cost. He employed only such labour as was needed to make his bread and occasionally clothes and a pipe. Nor did he merely ask alms of Nature and Civilization. He paid back countless charities to flower and bird and child and poorer men, and there was nothing against him of pain or sorrow or death inflicted. And as he was without religion