" [1]
Such men are indeed pitiable. But, happily, they are exceptions. If we can
none of us as yet fully appreciate the beauties of Nature, we are
beginning to do so more and more.
For most of us the early summer has a special charm. The very life is
luxury. The air is full of scent, and sound, and sunshine, of the song of
birds and the murmur of insects; the meadows gleam with golden buttercups,
it almost seems as if one could see the grass grow and the buds open; the
bees hum for very joy, and the air is full of a thousand scents, above all
perhaps that of new-mown hay.
The exquisite beauty and delight of a fine summer day in the country has
never perhaps been more truly, and therefore more beautifully, described
than by Jefferies in his "Pageant of Summer." "I linger,'" he says, "in
the midst of the long grass, the luxury of the leaves, and the song in the
very air. I seem as if I could feel all the glowing life the sunshine
gives and the south wind calls to being. The endless grass, the endless
leaves, the immense strength of the oak expanding, the unalloyed joy of
finch and blackbird; from all of them I receive a little.
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