corner, and that must not be suffered: you see a long spray of a
climbing rose that needs training. You look into the corn-chest:
the corn is almost finished. You have the fact impressed upon you
that the old potatoes are nearly done, and the new ones hardly
ready for use. These things partake of the nature of care: if you
do not feel very well, you will regard them as worries. But it is
no care nor worry to walk down to your gate, to lean upon it, and
to look at the outline of the hills: nor to go out with your little
children, and walk slowly along the country lane outside your
gate, relating for the hundredth time the legend of the renowned
giant-killer, or the enchanted horse that flew through the air; to
walk on till you come to the bridge, and there sit down, and throw
in stones for your dog to dive after, while various shouts (very
loud to come from such little mouths) applaud his success. How
crystal-clear the water of the river! It is six feet deep, yet you
may see every pebble of its bed. An undefined laziness possesses
you. You would like to sit here, and look, and think, all day.
But of course you will not give in to the temptation. Slowly you
return to your door: unwillingly you enter it: reluctantly you take
to your work. Until you have got somewhat into the spirit of your
task, you cannot help looking sometimes at the roses which frame
your window, and the green hill you see through it, with white
sheep. And even when you have got your mind under control, and the
lines flow more willingly from your pen, you cannot but look out
occasionally into the sunshiny, shady corner in your view, and think
you should be there. And when the prescribed pages are at length
completed, how delightful to lock them up, and be off into the air
again! You are far happier now than you were in the morning. The
shadow of your work was upon you then: now you may with a pleased
conscience, and under no sense of pressure, saunter about, and