TO BRIGHTON 183 



telegraph wires ; from that elevation they pounce down 

 on their prey, and return again to the wire. There were 

 two pairs of shrikes using the telegraph wires for this 

 purpose one spring only a short distance beyond noisy 

 Clapham Junction. Another pair came back several 

 seasons to a particular part of the wires, near a bridge, 

 and I have seen a hawk perched on the wire equally 

 near London. 



The haze hangs over the wide, dark plain, which, soon 

 after passing Redhill, stretches away on the right. It 

 seems to us in the train to extend from the foot of 

 a great bluff there to the first rampart of the still dis- 

 tant South Downs. In the evening that haze will be 

 changed to a flood of purple light veiling the horizon. 

 Fitful glances at the newspaper or the novel pass the 

 time ; but now I can read no longer, for I know, with- 

 out any marks or tangible evidence, that the hills are 

 drawing near. There is always hope in the hills. 



The dust of London fills the eyes and blurs the vision ; 

 but it penetrates deeper than that. There is a dust that 

 chokes the spirit, and it is this that makes the streets 

 so long, the stones so stony, the desk so wooden ; the 

 very rustiness of the iron railings about the offices sets 

 the teeth on edge, the sooty blackened walls (yet without 

 shadow) thrust back the sympathies which are ever trying 

 to cling to the inanimate things around us. A breeze 

 comes in at the carriage window a wild puff, disturbing 

 the heated stillness of the summer day. It is easy to 

 tell where that came from silently the Downs have 

 stolen into sight. 



So easy is the outline of the ridge, so broad and flow- 

 ing are the slopes, that those who have not mounted them 

 cannot grasp the idea of their real height and steepness. 

 The copse upon the summit yonder looks but a short 



