linnets and three or four yellow-hammers; a sprinkling of hedge-
sparrows, robins and wrens all along the street; and finally, one
skylark from a field close by would rise and sing at a considerable
height directly above the road. Gazing up at the lark and putting
myself in his place, the village beneath with its one long street
appeared as a vari-coloured band lying across the pale earth. There
were dark and bright spots, lines and streaks, of yew and holly, red or
white cottage walls and pale yellow thatch; and the plots and gardens
were like large reticulated mottlings. Each had its centre of human
life with life of bird and beast, and the centres were in touch with
one another, connected like a row of children linked together by their
hands; all together forming one organism, instinct with one life, moved
by one mind, like a many-coloured serpent lying at rest, extended at
full length upon the ground.

I imagined the case of a cottager at one end of the village occupied in
chopping up a tough piece of wood or stump and accidentally letting
fall his heavy sharp axe on to his foot, inflicting a grievous wound.
The tidings of the accident would fly from mouth to mouth to the other
extremity of the village, a mile distant; not only would every
individual quickly know of it, but have at the same time a vivid mental
image of his fellow villager at the moment of his misadventure, the
sharp glittering axe falling on to his foot, the red blood flowing from
the wound; and he would at the same time feel the wound in his own
foot, and the shock to his system.

In like manner all thoughts and feelings would pass freely from one to
another, although not necessarily communicated by speech; and all would
be participants in virtue of that sympathy and solidarity uniting the
members of a small isolated community. No one would be capable of a