Thursday, November 16, 2006

From the Tree to the Pool: Image credit Agnes Miller Parker

1 comment:

Littlestone said...

The title for this wood engraving is taken from the chapter, The Buttercups: From the Tree to the Pool, in Richard Jefferies' book, The Old House at Coate. The passage which the engraving accompanies is -

"I went to drink at the spring: the clear, cool, and sweet water tempted me in the summer. Stooping in the rocky cell, I lifted the water in the hollow of my hand, carefully else the sand might be disturbed. The sunlight gleamed on it as it slipped through my fingers; thus I had the sun, too, in my palm. Alone, under the roots of the trees and the step stone; alone, with the sunlight and the pure water, there was a sense of something more than these; the water was more to me than water; and the sun than sun - as if I had something in common with them and could feel with them. The gleaming ray on the liquid in my palm held me in its possession for the moment: the touch of the water gave me something from itself; it dropped from my fingers and was gone; the gleam disappeared, but I had had them. Beside the physical water and the physical light, my soul had received from them their beauty."