One Of The Books I Read Then For The
First Time Was White's Shelburne, Given To Me By An Old Friend Of Our
Family, A Merchant In Buenos Ayres, Who Had Been Accustomed To Stay A
Week Or Two With Us Once A Year When He Took His Holiday.
He had been
on a visit to Europe, and one day, he told me, when in London on the
Eve of his departure, he was in a bookshop, and seeing this book on
the counter and glancing at a page or two, it occurred to him that it
was just the right thing to get for that bird-loving boy out on the
pampas. I read and re-read it many times, for nothing so good of its
kind had ever come to me, but it did not reveal to me the secret of my
own feeling for Nature - the feeling of which I was becoming more and
more conscious, which was a mystery to me, especially at certain
moments, when it would come upon me with a sudden rush. So powerful it
was, so unaccountable, I was actually afraid of it, yet I would go out
of my way to seek it. At the hour of sunset I would go out half a mile
or so from the house, and sitting on the dry grass with hands clasped
round my knees, gaze at the western sky, waiting for it to take me.
And I would ask myself: What does it mean?
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