In this hot weather I like to walk at times amid the full glow of the
sun. Our island sun is never hot beyond endurance, and there is a
magnificence in the triumph of high summer which exalts one's mind. Among
streets it is hard to bear, yet even there, for those who have eyes to
see it, the splendour of the sky lends beauty to things in themselves
mean or hideous. I remember an August bank-holiday, when, having for
some reason to walk all across London, I unexpectedly found myself
enjoying the strange desertion of great streets, and from that passed to
surprise in the sense of something beautiful, a charm in the vulgar
vista, in the dull architecture, which I had never known. Deep and clear-
marked shadows, such as one only sees on a few days of summer, are in
themselves very impressive, and become more so when they fall upon
highways devoid of folk. I remember observing, as something new, the
shape of familiar edifices, of spires, monuments. And when at length I
sat down, somewhere on the Embankment, it was rather to gaze at leisure
than to rest, for I felt no weariness, and the sun, still pouring upon me
its noontide radiance, seemed to fill my veins with life.
That sense I shall never know again. For me Nature has comforts,
raptures, but no more invigoration. The sun keeps me alive, but cannot,
as in the old days, renew my being. I would fain learn to enjoy without
reflecting.
My walk in the golden hours leads me to a great horse-chestnut, whose
root offers a convenient seat in the shadow of its foliage. At that
resting-place I have no wide view before me, but what I see is enough--a
corner of waste land, over-flowered with poppies and charlock, on the
edge of a field of corn. The brilliant red and yellow harmonize with the
glory of the day. Near by, too, is a hedge covered with great white
blooms of the bindweed. My eyes do not soon grow weary.
A little plant of which I am very fond is the rest-harrow. When the sun
is hot upon it, the flower gives forth a strangely aromatic scent, very
delightful to me. I know the cause of this peculiar pleasure. The rest-
harrow sometimes grows in sandy ground above the seashore. In my
childhood I have many a time lain in such a spot under the glowing sky,
and, though I scarce thought of it, perceived the odour of the little
rose-pink flower when it touched my face. Now I have but to smell it,
and those hours come back again. I see the shore of Cumberland, running
north to St. Bee's Head; on the sea horizon a faint shape which is the
Isle of Man; inland, the mountains, which for me at that time guarded a
region of unknown wonder. Ah, how long ago!