of town_"--significant that, and pathetic;--then I wondered whether the
time would ever come when society would be far enough advanced to open to
even such as he a glimpse, if it were only once a year, of the fresh, clean
face of God's earth;--and then I became aware of a soft mysterious hum,
above and around me, and turned on my back to look whence it proceeded,
and saw the leaves gold-green and transparent in the sunlight, quivering
against the deep heights of the empyrean blue; and hanging in the sunbeams
that pierced the foliage, a thousand insects, like specks of fire, that
poised themselves motionless on thrilling wings, and darted away, and
returned to hang motionless again;--and I wondered what they eat, and
whether they thought about anything, and whether they enjoyed the
sunlight;--and then that brought back to me the times when I used to lie
dreaming in my crib on summer mornings, and watched the flies dancing reels
between me and the ceilings;--and that again brought the thought of Susan
and my mother; and I prayed for them--not sadly--I could not be sad
there;--and prayed that we might all meet again some day and live happily
together; perhaps in the country, where I could write poems in peace; and
then, by degrees, my sentences and thoughts grew incoherent, and in happy,
stupid animal comfort, I faded away into a heavy sleep, which lasted an
hour or more, till I was awakened by the efforts of certain enterprising
great black and red ants, who were trying to found a small Algeria in my
left ear.

I rose and left the wood, and a gate or two on, stopped again to look
at the same sportsman fishing in a clear silver brook. I could not help
admiring with a sort of childish wonder the graceful and practised aim with
which he directed his tiny bait, and called up mysterious dimples on the
surface, which in a moment increased to splashings and stragglings of a
great fish, compelled, as if by some invisible spell, to follow the point
of the bending rod till he lay panting on the bank. I confess, in spite of