patently absurd to be appalling. Nor indeed do I think that to the
more credulous children in England can the idea of eternal burning
have ever been quite so forbidding as their nurses meant it to be.
Credulity is but a form of incaution. I, as I have said, never had any
wish to play with fire; but most English children are strongly
attracted, and are much less afraid of fire than of the dark. Eternal
darkness, with a biting east-wind, were to the English fancy a far
more fearful prospect than eternal flames. The notion of these flames
arose in Italy, where heat is no luxury, and shadows are lurked in,
and breezes prayed for. In England the sun, even at its strongest, is
a weak vessel. True, we grumble whenever its radiance is a trifle less
watery than usual. But that is precisely because we are a people whose
nature the sun has not mellowed--a dour people, like all northerners,
ever ready to make the worst of things. Inwardly, we love the sun, and
long for it to come nearer to us, and to come more often. And it is
partly because this craving is unsatisfied that we cower so fondly
over our open hearths. Our fires are makeshifts for sunshine. Autumn
after autumn, `we see the swallows gathering in the sky, and in the
osier-isle we hear their noise,' and our hearts sink. Happy, selfish
little birds, gathering so lightly to fly whither we cannot follow
you, will you not, this once, forgo the lands of your desire? `Shall
not the grief of the old time follow?' Do winter with us, this once!
We will strew all England, every morning, with bread-crumbs for you,
will you but stay and help us to play at summer! But the delicate
cruel rogues pay no heed to us, skimming sharplier than ever in
pursuit of gnats, as the hour draws near for their long flight over
gnatless seas.

Only one swallow have I ever known to relent. It had built its nest
under the eaves of a cottage that belonged to a friend of mine, a man