morning, about six o'clock
By the way , I do not think any man is compelled to bid good-bye to his childhood : every man may feel young in the morning , middle-aged in the afternoon , and old at night . A day corresponds to a life , and the portions of the one are `` pictures in little '' of the seasons of the other . Thus far man may rule even time , and gather up , in a perfect being , youth and age at once . One morning , about six o'clock , Hugh , who had never been so early in the wood since the day he had met Margaret there , was standing under a beech-tree , looking up through its multitudinous leaves , illuminated , as I have attempted to describe , with the sidelong rays of the brilliant sun . He was feeling young , and observing the forms of nature with a keen discriminating gaze : that was all . Fond of writing verses , he was studying nature , not as a true lover , but as one who would hereafter turn his discoveries to use . For it must be confessed that nature affected him chiefly through the medium of poetry ; and that he was far more ambitious of writing beautiful things about nature than of discovering and understanding , for their own sakes , any of her hidden yet patent meanings .