when I consider them?  I could imagine a man who, by living alone and at peace, came to regard the everyday world as not really existent, but a creation of his own fancy in unsound moments.  What lunatic ever dreamt of things less consonant with the calm reason than those which are thought and done every minute in every community of men called sane?  But I put aside this reflection as soon as may be; it perturbs me fruitlessly.  Then I listen to the sounds about my cottage, always soft, soothing, such as lead the mind to gentle thoughts.  Sometimes I can hear nothing; not the rustle of a leaf, not the buzz of a fly, and then I think that utter silence is best of all.

This morning I was awakened by a continuous sound which presently shaped itself to my ear as a multitudinous shrilling of bird voices.  I knew what it meant.  For the last few days I have seen the swallows gathering, now they were ranged upon my roof, perhaps in the last council before their setting forth upon the great journey.  I know better than to talk about animal instinct, and to wonder in a pitying way at its resemblance to reason.  I know that these birds show to us a life far more reasonable, and infinitely more beautiful, than that of the masses of mankind.  They talk with each other, and in their talk is neither malice nor folly.  Could one but interpret the converse in which they make their plans for the long and perilous flight—­and then compare it with that of numberless respectable persons who even now are projecting their winter in the South!

XXV.

Yesterday I passed by an elm avenue, leading to a beautiful old house.  The road between the trees was covered in all its length and breadth with fallen leaves—­a carpet of pale gold.  Further on, I came to a plantation, mostly of larches; it shone in the richest aureate hue, with here and there a splash of blood-red, which was a young beech in its moment of autumnal glory.

I looked at an alder, laden with brown catkins, its blunt foliage stained with innumerable shades of lovely colour.  Near it was a horse-chestnut, with but a few leaves hanging on its branches, and those a deep orange.  The limes, I see, are already bare.

To-night the wind is loud, and rain dashes against my casement; to-morrow I shall awake to a sky of winter.

WINTER

I.

Blasts from the Channel, with raining scud, and spume of mist breaking upon the hills, have kept me indoors all day.  Yet not for a moment have I been dull or idle, and now, by the latter end of a sea-coal fire, I feel such enjoyment of my ease and tranquillity that I must needs word it before going up to bed.