Transcribed from the 1882 Macmillan and Co. edition by DavidPrice,
PROSE IDYLLS,
NEW AND OLD.
BY
REV. CHARLES KINGSLEY,
CANON OF WESTMINSTER.
NEWEDITION.
London:
MACMILLAN AND CO.
1882.
The Right of Translation andReproduction is Reserved.
CONTENTS.
| Page |
I. | |
‘A Charm of Birds’ | |
II. | |
Chalk-Stream Studies | |
III. | |
The Fens | |
IV. | |
My Winter-Garden | |
V. | |
From Ocean to Sea | |
VI. | |
North Devon | |
p. 1I.
‘A CHARM OF BIRDS.’ [1]
Is it merely a fancy that weEnglish, the educated people among us at least, are losing thatlove for spring which among our old forefathers rose almost toworship? That the perpetual miracle of the budding leavesand the returning song-birds awakes no longer in us theastonishment which it awoke yearly among the dwellers in the oldworld, when the sun was a god who was sick to death each winter,and returned in spring to life and health, and glory; when thedeath of Adonis, at the autumnal equinox, was wept over by theSyrian women, and the death of Baldur, in the colder north, byall living things, even to the dripping trees, and the rocksfurrowed by the autumn rains; when Freya, the goddess of youthand love, went forth over the earth each spring, while theflowers broke forth under her tread over the bro