So do you go, and enjoy yourself in the sunshine; but remember this—You know what happiness is. Then if you wish to please Lady Why, and Lady Why’s Lord and King likewise, you will never pass a little child without trying to make it happier, even by a passing smile. And now be off, and play in the hay, and come back to me when you are tired.
* * * * *
Let us lie down at the foot of this old oak, and see what we can see.
And hear what we can hear, too. What is that humming all round us, now that the noisy mowing-machine has stopped?
And as much softer than the noise of mowing-machine hum, as the machines which make it are more delicate and more curious. Madam How is a very skilful workwoman, and has eyes which see deeper and clearer than all microscopes; as you would find, if you tried to see what makes that “Midsummer hum” of which the haymakers are so fond, because it promises fair weather.
Why, it is only the gnats and flies.
Only the gnats and flies? You might study those gnats and flies for your whole life without finding out all—or more than a very little—about them. I wish I knew how they move those tiny wings of theirs—a thousand times in a second, I dare say, some of them. I wish I knew how far they know that they are happy—for happy they must be, whether they know it or not. I wish I knew how they live at all. I wish I even knew how many sorts there are humming round us at this moment.
How many kinds? Three or four?
More probably thirty or forty round this single tree.
But why should there be so many kinds of living things? Would not one or two have done just as well?