On the Downs

'The wind blows, and declares that the mind has capacity for more than has ever yet been brought to it. The wind is wide, and blows not only here, but along the whole range of hills - the hills are not broad enough for it; nor is the sea - it comes across the ocean and spreads itself whither it will. Though invisible, it is material, and yet it knows no limit. As the wind to the fixed boulder lying deep in the sward, so is the immaterial mind to the wind. There is capacity in it for more than has ever yet been placed before it. No system, no philosophy yet organized in logical sequence satisfies the inmost depth - fills and fully occupies the well of thought. Read the system and with the last word it is over - the mind passes on and requires more...

The Downs are lit with sunlight - the night will cover them presently - but the mind will sigh as eagerly for these things as in the glory of day. Sooner or later there will surely come an opening in the clouds, and a broad beam of light will descend. A new thought scarcely arrives in a thousand years, but the sweet wind is always here, providing breath for the physical man. Let hope and faith remain, like the air, always, so that the soul may live. That such a higher thought may come is the desire - the prayer which springs on viewing the blue hill line, the sea, the flower...

From the blue hill lines, from the dark copses on the ridges, the shadows in the combes, from the apple-sweet wind and rising grasses, from the leaf issuing out of the bud to question the sun - there comes from all of these an influence which forces the heart to lift itself in earnest and purest desire.
The soul knows itself, and would live its own life.'

Richard Jefferies, 'On the Downs', The Hills and the Vale