FRANCE IN JUNE.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 203, 25 August 1916, Page 4 (Supplement)

FRANCE IN JUNE.

BEHIND THE FRONT. THE OUTDOOR LIFE. The beauty of France, like the geniu> of France, will sometimes overwhelm even* the engrossed Englishman, whose creed it is that nothing is more lovely than England in Spring—<n April, which' was Shakcspea:e's month or May, which was Chaucer's, or June, which is everybody's. I think all Britons iin France, whether they fight or forbear, are on occasion almost ovewhelmecl by the spirt of Franco, as charactered on the open page of the country and in the lives of the country folk. Even those who already knew France well, according to a visiors' standard, find continual surprises and new virtues when they come to live in the country places as, in some sense, residents. ■ Let me, at any rate, speak for myself. The great national routes, avenned with trees where I am, doubles'venued with apples now in full blossom —run as straight through the country as tho vein of logic in the national character. They go direct to their point on broad lines and with surface as smooth as the French tongue itself. As you sweep in a car along these roads and look between the 'trunks as they flick past your eye at the hedgeles9 expanses of tilled land, you might fancy, if comparison with England were in the back of your mind, that much of the land was made monotonous by its verv richness and as landscape bare. But this open French country, unlike England with its hedgerow patterns, has ;< trick before the stranger of eoncealin* its own homeliness and landscape pictures. Take Richard Jefferies' advice anJ "always get over a stile." Before you know it, the rectangles of clover, of corn, of bird's-foot trefoil, of potatoes, and of rye dip into village valleys more English than England, if I may prase in terms of 'insular prejudice. For one presonally the lanes and woods and or chards, with the landscape gardens of the chateaux, held one especial surprise. They were each a paradise ot birds. We are apt, for some reason, to think of France as a country where stick it sportsmen advance on tip-toe at all hours and seasons to ambush songthrushes, or where the myrmidons of brutal gourmets induce dazzled larks to dive to their death into mirroreJ traps. There is doubtless a Frcnci proverb to the effect that "if you caanot get thrushes for dinner you must be content with blackbirds"; and C roper protection for birds in general as been late in coming. Nevertheless is there any place in the world whero the a'r is fuller of the song« of th? birds, or where more tiny nests lurk ir. 9afety behind the fringes of leaves? Within 400 yards of where I write 1 can watch, when I will, a pair of golden orioles, as faithful to i.ne cool harbourage of a trio of beech trees as the old village padre to his little snug church among the poplars—the golden oriole, which has vainly endeavoured for years to make a nesting home in England. Same birds are m : ssing goldfinches and bullfinches, and perhaps pipits—hut : f you are not awaked about dawn by the song of blackcaps and chaffinches and wrens, with a score besides, you are a very heavy sleeper indeed. * » * » It is a curious fact that many French people themselves feel and say that never before have they found their own country so full of beauty and charm. It is perhaps a more than usually beautiful season, as early seasons always are. They concentrate attractions. The discs of the elder and the guelder and tho dogwood. are like moons :n the hedges, all shining together, along w;ith tho dog-roses, in flower before their time, and the moon daisies in the hay crops. The apple blossom was seldom more abundant; and the crowning charm of this part of France is the spacious ginss orchard, where lienoath the heavy-headed trees the red cows, deep in udder, munch a luscious grass and chew th e cud of a rich contentment, for themselves and the'r country owners. The season is gracious, but there 's a deeper cause than this for the supreme salience of the beauty of the land. Everyone who ever admired a Summer view knows that never does foliage take on so vivid a hue as when seen against an advancing thundercloud. This common phenomenon, this revelation of the brilliance of verdure aga'nst the blackness of a storm, fia«> become tlvs year a symbol. War and the blackness of it enhance to every eye the "sweetness of light"' of Nature. Sold'ers feel this perhaps more than civilians, and those nearer the lin» moie than those remote. The daily sound of the thunder of the guns dees what the thunder-cloud does for the foliage. It gilds the glory of every thing that is not war. •* * * * Another and most human quality be longs to France to-day and adds :t.> cjuota to our admiration. Daily we sc; pictures of work on the land which outdo in meaning and passion all the many glon'ous pictures —from a bas-relief on the Temple of Ceres to Millet's Angelus —which the theme of land labour lias inspired. Children and women and old men have fairly charmed crops out of the ground. Now and again you may see a British soldier driving a harrow or a plough ; and many French "poilus" have worked from dawn to sunset in their brief " permission." But the work lias been done, as we see daily here behind the lines, by the stay-at-homes. Lively boys and pretty girls, women of every age and figure, and all the old men have worked almost with passion to raise their crops. The other day I found a septuagenarian and his old white, horse harrow ng a seed plot at 9.30 p.m. They looked like the ghosts of some departed yeoman and his team secretly returning, like a log-licvby-the-fice, to make good the deficiency of work with which a brutal enemy had tried to punish the old home". Tho rattle of the wheels aid creaking of the harness disturbed the sieep'ng partridge and brought the inquisitive owl to see who was infringing on his kingdom of the night. At all Vines tise country people love the land in France, so that th n y cannot help labouring it to the hilt. At this war time they love it with a pass'on that is like no other patriotism. It is France itself, the stuff out of which the country is made, that they love. And of all that is fair to see in France to-day, their work is the fairest, even to the eye.