eyes ranged free, for the first time in my life, over the chequered squares
of cultivation, over glittering brooks, and hills quivering in the green
haze, while above hung the skylarks, pouring out their souls in melody.
And then, as the sun grew hot, and the larks dropped one by one into the
growing corn, the new delight of the blessed silence! I listened to the
stillness; for noise had been my native element; I had become in London
quite unconscious of the ceaseless roar of the human sea, casting up mire
and dirt. And now, for the first time in my life, the crushing, confusing
hubbub had flowed away, and left my brain calm and free. How I felt at that
moment a capability of clear, bright meditation, which was as new to me,
as I believe it would have been to most Londoners in my position. I cannot
help fancying that our unnatural atmosphere of excitement, physical as well
as moral, is to blame for very much of the working man's restlessness and
fierceness. As it was, I felt that every step forward, every breath of
fresh air, gave me new life. I had gone fifteen miles before I recollected
that, for the first time for many months, I had not coughed since I rose.

So on I went, down the broad, bright road, which seemed to beckon me
forward into the unknown expanses of human life.

The world was all before me, where to choose,

and I saw it both with my eyes and my imagination, in the temper of a boy
broke loose from school. My heart kept holiday. I loved and blessed the
birds which flitted past me, and the cows which lay dreaming on the sward.
I recollect stopping with delight at a picturesque descent into the road,
to watch a nursery-garden, full of roses of every shade, from brilliant
yellow to darkest purple; and as I wondered at the innumerable variety of
beauties which man's art had developed from a few poor and wild species, it
seemed to me the most delightful life on earth, to follow in such a