A JOURNAL KEPT IN THE COUNTRY. 5 



wider fame, richer in historic interest are, to some 

 extent, guarded by a special public opinion, or what 

 passes for it ; but our incomparable Arcadia must be 

 destroyed without a word of protest. The constant 

 sap of brick and mortar, corrugated iron, and match- 

 boarding advances ; speculative builders satisfy and 

 foment the desire of the Cockney for a new red villa 

 on a hill ; the villages year by year spread their 

 fringe of abominable cottage and backyard ; the 

 Government which looks after the art-instincts of 

 our school children is engaged in blocking out some 

 of the noblest of our landscapes with its black 

 telephone-posts thirty feet high. All pleasure that 

 is possible in watching Nature lies in survivals. The 

 remnant is still amply sufficient to make us forget, 

 in the more vivid moments, what is desecrated and 

 lost ; but as year to year the mischief works, that 

 " piteous lot " draws nearer " to flee from man, yet 

 not rejoice in nature " not of choice, but of miser- 

 able necessity. 



With such aspects of the land and the people as 

 these my journal deals : too little hopeful of the 

 future perhaps ; inevitably puzzled by the present's 

 marvellous tangle of good and ill ; tuned, no doubt, 

 somewhat to that regretful regard of the past, which 

 is so easy for the sliding forties. You will find 



