284 BIRDS AND MAN 



discordant noises, all the more hateful because so 

 familiar. For in coming to a new place we look 

 instinctively for that which is new, and the old, and 

 in themselves unpleasant sights and sounds, at such a 

 moment produce a disheartening, deadening effect on 

 the stranger : — the same clanging, puffing, grinding, 

 gravel-crushing, banging, shrieking noises ; the same 

 big unlovely brick and metal structure, the long plat- 

 form, the confusion of objects and people, the waiting 

 vehicles, and the glittering steel rails stretching away 

 into infinitude, like unburied petrified webs of some 

 gigantic spider of a remote past — webs in which 

 mastodons were caught like flies. Approaching a 

 town from some other direction — riding, driving, or 

 walking — we see it with a clearer truer vision, and 

 take away a better and more lasting image. 



Selborne is one of the noted places where pilgrims 

 go that is happily without a station. From which- 

 ever side you approach it the place itself, features 

 and expression, is clearly discerned : in other words 

 you see Selborne, and not a brick and metal out- 

 work or mask ; not an excrescence, a goitre, which 

 can make even a beautiful countenance appear 

 repulsive. There is a station within a few miles of 

 the village. I approached by a different route, and 

 saw it at the end of a fifteen miles' walk. Rain had 



