In the country

I watched a programme about the mental benefits of gardens and the countryside and felt I should share a note from Jefferies, The Amateur Poacher and stick a country story about a poacher, Fishing for Spooks, into this website.

“Let us always be out of doors among the trees and grass, and the rain and wind and sun. There the breeze comes and strikes the cheek and sets it aglow: the gale increases and the trees creek and roar, but it is only ruder music. A calm follows, the sun shines in the sky, and it is a time to sit under an oak, leaning against the bark, while the birds sing and the air is soft and sweet. By night the stars shine, and there is no fathoming the dark spaces between those brilliant points, nor the thoughts that come as it were between the fixed stars and landmarks of the mind.

… Let us get out of these indoor narrow modern days, whose twelve hours have become shortened, into the sunlight and the pure wind. A something that the ancients called divine can be found and felt there still.”

Written in1878 – or is it July of 2021 and its work day extended by travelling?

This is where I like my characters to spend time.