in that lovely park which the Duke of Norfolk, to his glory, leaves open
to all the world, and where the anemones flourish in unusual size and
number; beech-trees in Marlborough Forest; beech-trees at the summit to
which the lane leads that was spoken of just now. Beech and beautiful
scenery go together.

But the primroses by that lane did not appear till late; they covered the
banks under the thousand thousand ash-poles; foxes slipped along there
frequently, whose friends in scarlet coats could not endure the pale
flowers, for they might chink their spurs homewards. In one meadow near
primroses were thicker than the grass, with gorse interspersed, and the
rabbits that came out fed among flowers. The primroses last on to the
celandines and cowslips, through the time of the bluebells, past the
violets--one dies but passes on the life to another, one sets light to
the next, till the ruddy oaks and singing cuckoos call up the tall mowing
grass to fringe summer.

Before I had any conscious thought it was a delight to me to find wild
flowers, just to see them. It was a pleasure to gather them and to take
them home; a pleasure to show them to others--to keep them as long as
they would live, to decorate the room with them, to arrange them
carelessly with grasses, green sprays, tree-bloom--large branches of
chestnut snapped off, and set by a picture perhaps. Without conscious
thought of seasons and the advancing hours to light on the white wild
violet, the meadow orchis, the blue veronica, the blue meadow cranesbill;
feeling the warmth and delight of the increasing sun-rays, but not
recognising whence or why it was joy. All the world is young to a boy,
and thought has not entered into it; even the old men with grey hair do
not seem old; different but not aged, the idea of age has not been
mastered. A boy has to frown and study, and then does not grasp what long