I stood on the river-bank near Bablockhythe and watched a snake swim straight across the water. He was quite a small snake and made little stir, so that at first I saw only his head moving. It seemed odd in a fish to swim with its head out of the water. Every now and then he stopped dead, curved in the sun quite still; then was off again on his way to the opposite bank. In that silent and remote place the little live thing held all my attention. The form and movement were lovely of course, but they were not the cause of the fascination. They were only signals. What was fascinating was the appearance of Purpose, the way the silence and the swift, steady movement gave me the sense of something being done, a secret intention being followed with the entire body and soul of the creature.

It is always so with animals. They go so entirely to their ends. They are utterly absorbed in doing something. Hence their gravity, their sincerity, their entire lack of both humour and vulgarity. They may play but they do not joke, they may strut about before their females, but they are never self-conscious. They are wonderfully at ease. And how their actions interweave! A million actions and movements converged on that snake to make him swim the river at that precise moment, and he, displacing the water, was moving the whole Thames.