22O IDLEHURST : 



misfortunes than the consolations of philosophy ; 

 better as slipping rather than parrying the blow, and 

 as leaving the more solid guards for those weightier 

 assaults which will not fail at their own season to 

 require all the defence we know. 



i8/& Yesterday I had need to go to the county 

 town ; so leaving Bob in charge of Lucy and Bish, 

 with orders to the latter to fetch up the old pony 

 from the meadow and divert the young gentleman 

 with him if matters became too adventurous, I walked 

 the three miles to Tisfield, the congeries of stucco 

 villas and builders' lots, nursery grounds and brick 

 yards fenced with corrugated iron and barbed wire, 

 which has sprung up, magalia quondam, during the 

 last thirty years round about a dreary wooden pile of 

 buildings perched high on a red clay embankment 

 Tisfield Junction, the railway station for this part of 

 the world. Waiting for the nine o'clock train, I find 

 half Arnington on the platform. We are all travellers 

 now : it is only the old folk who have never been five 

 miles from home ; even vegetative natures like Bish 

 have been to Brighton, under strong necessity, three 

 or four times in a lifetime. There is no doubt that 

 fixity contributes to peace. I found old Mrs. Roser 

 not long ago placidly making tea, quite untroubled 

 by the fact that the French, as she had just heard 



