without the powers of digestion.  The French lady said that if strawberry ices were only sinful, no pleasure could exceed that which is to be enjoyed in the consumption of the congealed fruit.  Strawberry ices are sinful now, and under the medical ban.  The French lady, were she living still, might be at ease on that score.  But her audacity is not given to all, and many fall back on that poor creature, lemon-squash, when they are conscious of a thirst worthy of being quenched by the most imperial beverages in imperial quarts.

Men, being reasonable, must hurry about town when the thermometer is at something fabulous, wearing black clothes, going to parties, and larding the lean earth.  Beasts are not so foolish.  To the pious Brahmin Vishnu accords the power of becoming what animal he pleases, with a break in the lease, so to speak, when circumstances alter.  Had a sage this power at this moment he would become a cow, standing up to her middle in the clear, cool water of the Kennet, under the shade of a hanging willow tree.  What bliss can equal that of a cow thus engaged?  Her life must, indeed, be burning with a hard gem-like flame.  She must be plucking the flower of a series of exquisite moments.  The rich, deep grass, with the buttercups and forget-me-nots, is behind her, but she has had enough of that, and is open to more spiritual pleasures.  The kingfishers and water-wagtails flit about her.  The water-rat jumps into the stream with a soft plash, and his black body scuttles along to the opposite bank.  The green dragon-flies float hither and thither; the beautiful frail-winged water-flies float over trout too lazy to snatch at them.  The cow, in her sensuous nirvana, may see and marvel at the warm boating-man as he tows two stout young ladies in a heavy boat, or labours with the oar.  Her pleasure is far more enduring than that of the bathers in the lasher up stream, and she has an enormous advantage over the contemplative man trying to lie on the grass and enjoy nature, for he really is not enjoying nature.  The pleasures of lying on the grass are chiefly those of imagination.  You cannot get into a truly comfortable position.  Your back has a lump of grass under it here, or your arm tingles and “falls asleep,” as children say.  No attitude will enable you to read, and the black flies hover around and alight on such of your features as are tempting—­to a fly.  Then you begin to be quite sure it is damp, and, as you have nothing else to sit on, you sit down on your book, which no one can call comfortable.

The notion of reclining on cushions in a punt is equally fallacious, and, while promising much, ends in a headache.  Besides, the river does not always smell very nicely now that it has so long been unrelieved by rain.  All through the hot day, in fact, civilized northern man finds loafing very difficult, especially as his Aryan impetuosity is always urging him to do something active.  Cows in this climate are the only true