God's good man Author:Marie Corelli Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: bluest skies. Birds broke into enraptured song,—young almond and apple boughs quivered almost visibly every moment into pink and white bloom,—cowslips and bluebe... more »lls raised their heads from mossy corners in the grass, and expressed their innocent thoughts in sweetest odour —and in and through all things the glorious thrill, the mysterious joy of renewed life, hope and love pulsated from the Creator to His responsive creation. It was May-time; a real "old-fashioned" English May, such as Spenser and Herrick sang of: "When all is yclad With blossoms; the ground with grass, the woodes With grcene leaves; the bushes with blossoming buddes," and when whatever promise our existence yet holds for us seems far enough away to inspire ambition, yet close enough to encourage fair dreams of fulfilment. To experience this glamour and witchery of the flowering-time of the year, one must, perforce, be in the country. For in the towns, the breath of Spring is fcetid and feverish, —it arouses sick longings and weary regrets, but scarcely any positive ecstasy. The close, stuffy streets, the swarming people, the high buildings and stacks of chimneys which only permit the narrowest patches of sky to be visible, the incessant noise and movement, the self-absorbed crowding and crushing,—all these things are so many offences to Nature, and are as dead walls of obstacle set against the revivifying and strengthening forces with which she endows her freer children of the forest, field and mountain. Out on the wild heathery moorland, in the heart of the woods, in the deep bosky dells, where the pungent scent of moss and pine-boughs fills the air with invigorating influences, or by the quiet rivers, flowingpeacefully under bending willows and past wide osier-beds, where the king-fisher swoops down...« less