All Along The Backwater, Through The Rushes

As A Rule, Indeed, Grown-up People Are Fairly Correct On Matters Of Fact; It Is In The Higher Gift Of Imagination That They Are So Sadly To Seek.

The Whole Wood Seemed Running Now, Running Hard, Hunting, Chasing, Closing In Round Something Or - Somebody? In Panic, He Began To Run Too, Aimlessly, He Knew Not Whither.

But Mole Stood Still A Moment, Held In Thought. As One Wakened Suddenly From A Beautiful Dream, Who Struggles To Recall It, But Can Recapture Nothing But A Dim Sense Of The Beauty In It, The Beauty! Till That, Too, Fades Away In Its Turn, And The Dreamer Bitterly Accepts The Hard, Cold Waking And All Its Penalties.

No Animal, According To The Rules Of Animal-etiquette, Is Ever Expected To Do Anything Strenuous, Or Heroic, Or Even Moderately Active During The Off-season Of Winter.

Weasels--and Stoats--and Foxes--and So On. They're All Right In A Way--i'm Very Good Friends With Them--pass The Time Of Day When We Meet, And All That--but They Break Out Sometimes, There's No Denying It, And Then--well, You Can't Really Trust Them, And That's The Fact.