years mean. The various hues of the petals pleased without any knowledge
of colour-contrasts, no note even of colour except that it was bright,
and the mind was made happy without consideration of those ideals and
hopes afterwards associated with the azure sky above the fir-tree. A
fresh footpath, a fresh flower, a fresh delight. The reeds, the grasses,
the rushes--unknown and new things at every step--something always to
find; no barren spot anywhere, or sameness. Every day the grass painted
anew, and its green seen for the first time; not the old green, but a
novel hue and spectacle, like the first view of the sea.

If we had never before looked upon the earth, but suddenly came to it man
or woman grown, set down in the midst of a summer mead, would it not seem
to us a radiant vision? The hues, the shapes, the song and life of birds,
above all the sunlight, the breath of heaven, resting on it; the mind
would be filled with its glory, unable to grasp it, hardly believing that
such things could be mere matter and no more. Like a dream of some
spirit-land it would appear, scarce fit to be touched lest it should fall
to pieces, too beautiful to be long watched lest it should fade away. So
it seemed to me as a boy, sweet and new like this each morning; and even
now, after the years that have passed, and the lines they have worn in
the forehead, the summer mead shines as bright and fresh as when my foot
first touched the grass. It has another meaning now; the sunshine and the
flowers speak differently, for a heart that has once known sorrow reads
behind the page, and sees sadness in joy. But the freshness is still
there, the dew washes the colours before dawn. Unconscious happiness in
finding wild flowers--unconscious and unquestioning, and therefore
unbounded.

I used to stand by the mower and follow the scythe sweeping down
thousands of the broad-flowered daisies, the knotted knapweeds, the blue