sinks softly away, like some tiny bay, and the water flows between,
so clear, so wide, so shallow, that Lizzy, longing for adventure, is
sure she could cross unwetted; now dashing through two sand-banks, a
torrent deep and narrow, which May clears at a bound; now sleeping,
half hidden, beneath the alders, and hawthorns, and wild roses, with
which the banks are so profusely and variously fringed, whilst
flags,* lilies, and other aquatic plants, almost cover the surface
of the stream. In good truth, it is a beautiful brook, and one that
Walton himself might have sitten by and loved, for trout are there;
we see them as they dart up the stream, and hear and start at the
sudden plunge when they spring to the surface for the summer flies.
Izaak Walton would have loved our brook and our quiet meadows; they
breathe the very spirit of his own peacefulness, a soothing quietude
that sinks into the soul. There is no path through them, not one;
we might wander a whole spring day, and not see a trace of human
habitation. They belong to a number of small proprietors, who allow
each other access through their respective grounds, from pure
kindness and neighbourly feeling; a privilege never abused: and the
fields on the other side of the water are reached by a rough plank,
or a tree thrown across, or some such homely bridge. We ourselves
possess one of the most beautiful; so that the strange pleasure of
property, that instinct which makes Lizzy delight in her broken
doll, and May in the bare bone which she has pilfered from the
kennel of her recreant admirer of Newfoundland, is added to the
other charms of this enchanting scenery; a strange pleasure it is,
when one so poor as I can feel it! Perhaps it is felt most by the
poor, with the rich it may be less intense--too much diffused and
spread out, becoming thin by expansion, like leaf-gold; the little
of the poor may be not only more precious, but more pleasant to
them: certain that bit of grassy and blossomy earth, with its green