"One wants a place where one can get back to Nature," said a young man with a pince-nez and open-work socks.
"But my father's great idea," said Richard, "is that Nature is just a thing for man to tread down and subdue."
"It can't be done," said the young man in the open-work socks—"it can't be done. And why should we want to do it?—is not Nature the Mother and Nurse of us all?—and is it not best for us simply to lie on her bosom and trust her for our welfare?"
"If I'd a-done that," said Reuben, "I shouldn't have an acre to my näum, surelye."
"And what do you want with an acre? What is an acre but a man's toy—a child's silly name for a picture it can't understand. Have you ever heard Pan's pipes?"
"I have not, young man."
"Then you know nothing of Nature—the real goddess, many-breasted Ceres. What can you know of the earth, who have never danced to the earth's music?"
"I once stayed on the Downs," said the girl in the embroidered frock, speaking dreamily, "and one twilight I seemed to hear elfin music on the hill. I tore off my shoes and let down my hair and I danced—I danced...."
"Ah," said the youth in the open-work socks approvingly. "That's very like an episode in 'Meryon's House,' you know—that glorious scene in which Jennifer the Prostitute goes down to the New Forest with Meryon and suddenly begins dancing in a glade."
"Of course, being a prostitute, she'd be closer to Nature than a respectable person."