32 EARLY LETTERS [Chap. I 



Letter 12 where we slept is a grocer's shop, and the landlord is the 

 carpenter — so you may guess the style of the village. There 

 are butcher and baker and post-office. A carrier goes weekly 

 to London and calls anywhere for anything in London and 

 takes anything anywhere. On the road [from London] to 

 the village", on a fine day the scenery is absolutely beautiful : 

 from close to our house the view is very distant and rather 

 beautiful, but the house being situated on a rather high table- 

 land has somewhat of a desolate air. There is a most beautiful 

 old farm-house, with great thatched barns and old stumps of 

 oak trees, like that of Skelton, one field off. The charm of 

 the place to me is that almost every field is intersected (as 

 alas is ours) by one or more foot-paths. I never saw so 

 many walks in any other county. The country is extra- 

 ordinarily rural and quiet with narrow lanes and high hedges 

 and hardly any ruts. It is really surprising to think London 

 is only 16 miles off. The house stands very badly, close to 

 a tiny lane and near another man's field. Our field is 15 acres 

 and flat, looking into flat-bottomed valleys on both sides, but 

 no view from the drawing-room, which faces due south, except 

 on our flat field and bits of rather ugly distant horizon. Close 

 in front there are some old (very productive) cherry trees, 

 walnut trees, yew, Spanish chestnut, pear, old larch, Scotch 

 fir and silver fir and old mulberry trees, [which] make rather 

 a pretty group. They give the ground an old look, but from 

 not flourishing much they also give it rather a desolate look. 

 There are quinces and medlars and plums with plenty of 

 fruit, and Morello cherries ; but few apples. The purple 

 magnolia flowers against the house. There is a really fine 

 beech in view in our hedge. The kitchen garden is a detest- 

 able slip and the soil looks wretched from the quantity of 

 chalk flints, but I really believe it is productive. The hedges 

 grow well all round our field, and it is a noted piece of hay- 

 land. This year the crop was bad, but was bought, as it 

 stood, for £2 per acre — that is ,£30 — the purchaser getting 

 it in. Last year it was sold for £45 — no manure was put 

 on in the interval. Does not this sound well ? Ask my father. 

 Does the mulberry and magnolia show it is not very cold 

 in winter, which I fear is the case? Tell Susan it is 9 miles 

 from Knole Park and 6 from Westerham, at which places 

 I hear the scenery is beautiful. There are many very odd 



