Ay, as long as the skylark sings, there is in the world at least one bit of absolute happiness, untouched by any doubt or pain. . . . How is it that he can mount and sing at the same time, without losing breath, or turning giddy? . . . Now down he comes, straight as a falling stone, back plump into the cool and the clover. There, deep down, must be a little home, with some brown-speckled grey eggs all warm in it, and quantities of hope. How can the lark help being happy? And up here in the hills, this morning, with all the world so growing and fresh and glad about us, how can we?
Yes, glad, and fresh—and free. Turn and look back a moment. Ah, I knew that would bring you to a full stop! If from below the peep was exquisite, of green and blue, fjord and settlement, from here the prospect is one all of width and splendour. Before us now there is nothing but sea, sea, sea: one spread, vast, moving field, veined with currents, shimmering with light, and shot like an opal with varying colours—purple and peacock, turquoise and azure, silver and gold and green—an illimitable world of shine and space. Surely it is illimitable? So free, so “out” it stretches, that it seems equally impossible to conceive that anything ever should stop it, or that it should anywhere stop of itself. As for the horizon, you feel at once how it must go flowing on beyond that. And yet, immediately, away to the west, here is its infinity promptly challenged, nay, put an end to, by old Mother Earth, standing and shaking out her apron, as it were, in flying folds—with very firm edges. Leagues and leagues from here can we see of the long peninsular coast-line. Stretched
