226 IDLEHURST : 



clouds, a pale golden horizon. The business of the 

 atmosphere is visibly going on in that manner of 

 serene purpose and unity which makes the opera- 

 tions of Nature so good a refreshing after human 

 modes. 



Looking down on the town again, I find the 

 compact little whole, a busy hive, bounded concisely 

 enough this way by trees and meadows, to be not 

 altogether out of tune with the quiet heaven. The 

 barges are coming up slowly with the tide ; with 

 them comes the smell of the sea and knots of 

 drifting seaweed : the men at the puntpoles wear 

 oilskins and sou'westers. Country waggons wind 

 through the Cliffe streets ; Down folk and Weald 

 folk are marketing, banking, seeing their lawyers, up 

 and down the Hill. In the County Hall my three 

 Councillors and their fellows are devising liberal 

 things for the commonweal. A fairly consentaneous 

 chorus of easy-going chimes gives the hour, with no 

 sense of wishing to hurry any one. The place is 

 alive with businesses done with very little noise, 

 smoke, or stench. It seems to fulfil all the needs of 

 a town ; and one regrets that some sort of centralisa- 

 tion of noxious trades and decentralisation of ordinary 

 human aggregations should not at least preserve 



