A lifelong intimacy with animals has got me out of the common notion that they are automata with a slight infusion of intelligence in their composition. The mind in beast and bird, as in man, is the main thing.

Animals of all classes, old and young, shrink with instinctive fear from any strange object approaching them.

Have you ever observed a humming-bird moving about in an aerial dance among the flowers - a living prismatic gem.... it is a creature of such fairy-like loveliness as to mock all description.

We know that our senses are subject to decay, that from our middle years they are decaying all the time; but happily it is as if we didn't know and didn't believe.

For here the religion that languishes in crowded cities or steals shame-faced to hide itself in dim churches, flourishes greatly, filling the soul with a solemn joy. Face to face with Nature on the vast hills at eventide, who does not feel himself near to the Unseen?

Bear in mind that the children of life are the children of joy; that the lower animals are only unhappy when made so by man; that man alone of all the creatures, has "found out many inventions", the chief of which appears to be the art of making himself miserable, and of seeing all Nature stained with that dark and hateful colour.

There are many Green Dragons in this world of wayside inns, even as there are many White Harts, Red Lions, Silent Women and other incredible things.