If Altruism, Or The Religion Of
Humanity, Is A Living Vigorous Plant, And As Some Believe
Flourishes More With The Progress Of The Centuries, It Must,
Like Other "Soul-Growths," Have A Deeper, Tougher Woodier Root
In Our Soil.
Chapter Eight:
A Gold Day At Silchester
It is little to a man's profit to go far afield if his chief
pleasure be in wild life, his main object to get nearer to the
creatures, to grow day by day more intimate with them, and to
see each day some new thing. Yet the distance has the same
fascination for him as for another - the call is as sweet and
persistent in his ears. If he is on a green level country
with blue hills on the horizon, then, especially in the early
morning, is the call sweetest, most irresistible. Come away
- come away: this blue world has better things than any in
that green, too familiar place. The startling scream of the
jay - you have heard it a thousand times. It is pretty to
watch the squirrel in his chestnut-red coat among the oaks in
their fresh green foliage, full of fun as a bright child,
eating his apple like a child, only it is an oak-apple,
shining white or white and rosy-red, in his little paws; but
you have seen it so many times - come away:
It was not this voice alone which made me forsake the green
oaks of Silchester and Pamber Forest, to ramble for a season
hither and thither in Wiltshire, Dorset, and Somerset; there
was something for me to do in those places, but the call
made me glad to go.
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