They talked of bringing artillery, with fevered lips, to roar forth
shrapnel in Trafalgar Square; why not Gatling guns?
The artillery did not
come for very shame, but the Guards did, and there were regiments of
infantry in the rear, with glittering bayonets to prod folk into moving
on. All about these little grains of wheat.
These thoughts came into my mind in the winter afternoon at the edge of a
level corn-field, with the copper-sheathed spire of the village church on
my right, the sun going down on the left. The copper did not gleam, it
was dull and brown, no better than discoloured wood, patched with pieces
of later date and another shade of dulness. I wish they would glitter,
some of these steeples or some of our roofs, and so light up the reddish
brown of the elms and the grey lichened oaks. The very rooks are black,
and the starlings and the wintry fieldfares and redwings have no colour
at a distance. They say the metal roofs and domes gleam in Russia, and
even in France, and why not in our rare sunshine? Once now and then you
see a gilded weathercock shine like a day-star as the sun goes down three
miles away, over the dark brown field, where the plough has been going to
and fro through the slow hours. I can see the plough and the horses very
well at three miles, and know what they are doing.
I wish the trees, the elms, would grow tall enough and thick enough to
hide the steeples and towers which stand up so stiff and stark, and bare
and cold, some of them blunted and squab, some of them sharp enough to
impale, with no more shape than a walking-stick, ferrule upwards - every
one of them out of proportion and jarring to the eye. If by good fortune
you can find a spot where you cannot see a steeple or a church tower,
where you can see only fields and woods, you will find it so much more
beautiful, for nature has made it of its kind perfect. The dim sea is
always so beautiful a view because it is not disfigured by these
buildings. In the ships men live; in the houses among the trees they
live; these steeples and towers are empty, and no spirit can dwell in
that which is out of proportion. Scarcely any one can paint a picture of
the country without sticking in one of these repellent structures. The
oast-houses, whose red cones are so plentiful in Kent and Sussex, have
quite a different effect; they have some colour, and by a curious
felicity the builders have hit upon a good proportion, so that the shape
is pleasant; these, too, have some use in the world.
Westward the sun was going down over the sea, and a wild west wind, which
the glow of the sun as it touched the waves seemed to heat into fury,
brought up the distant sound of the billows from the beach.
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