In the clear air each flower stands out with separate and perfect beauty, moist, soft and bright, a beauty than which I know nothing more nearly capable of transferring the soul to the days and the pleasures of infancy. The crust of half a lifetime falls away, and we can feel what Blake expressed when he wrote those lines in _Milton_-- Thou perceivest the flowers put forth their precious odours, And none can tell how from so small a centre comes such sweet, Forgetting that within that centre Eternity expands Its ever-during doors, that Og and Anax fiercely guard. First, ere the morning breaks, joy opens in the flowery bosoms, Joy even to tears, which the Sun rising dries; first the Wild Thyme And Meadow-sweet, downy and soft, waving among the reeds, Light springing in the air, lead the sweet Dance; they wake The Honeysuckle sleeping in the Oak, the flaunting beauty Revels along upon the wind; the white-thorn lovely May Opens her many lovely eyes; listening the Rose still sleeps. None dare to wake her. Soon she bursts her crimson-curtained bed And comes forth in the majesty of beauty; every Flower-- The Pink, the Jessamine, the Wallflower, the Carnation, The Jonquil, the mild Lily opes her heavens; every Tree And Flower and Herb soon fill the air with an innumerable Dance, Yet all in order sweet and lovely.... Those words or such a morning--when the soul steps back many years; or is it many centuries?--might have moved M. Maeterlinck to his descriptions of certain great moments in the lives of plants. The terms of these descriptions are so chosen as to imply an intelligence and discriminating vital energy in plants. They prove and explain nothing, but they take one step towards the truth by disturbing the conventional scientific view and substituting that of a man who, passionately looking at many forms of life, finds them to be of one family. After this, it should be more and more difficult for men to think of flowers as if they were fragile toys from an exceptionally brilliant manufacturer. And now there is a day of sun and high blue sky alternating with low, grey-yellow sky and driving snow that chequers the northern sides of the furrows and the beech boles. The sun melts the snow and all is clear, bright and cold, and the sky blue again with white and lofty clouds; many thrushes are singing; the broad vale is all one blue moorland that has buried its houses, and the Downs at the far side are close at hand. Towards evening the wind falls, and it is a glimpse of another world that is given as the sun is warm for a moment on a low curving slope of wet grass, with tall rookery beeches glowing on one hand and on the other bulging white clouds just emerging from behind the green edge into the blue, while very far away the Downs, both grass and wood, are deep blue under a broad pane of yellowish light.