386 LIFE AND EXPERIENCES CHAP. 



inactivity which had long and injuriously prevailed in 

 certain of these seats of learning. It is satisfactory to 

 know that the sum set apart for these purposes by the 

 Carnegie trustees has been welcomed by the University 

 authorities, and is already producing results. 



HOME LIFE IN SURREY 



Though the delights of travel are great, there comes 

 a time to all when the quiet pleasures of home life are 

 more attractive, and when this day arrives there is, at 

 least to the dwellers in London, no expenditure better 

 laid out than in a second home, however humble, in 

 the country. For the strain, both physical and mental, 

 of a year of life spent continuously in London is to 

 people no longer young often serious. 



For several years we were content to take houses in 

 Surrey, where many pleasant autumns were spent. 

 At last, however, we were fortunate enough to obtain 

 a permanent pied-a-terre, situated in what I venture to 

 think is the most beautiful and healthy spot in the whole 

 of Surrey, namely, at Woodcote Lodge, the property 

 of Lord Lovelace, placed 650 feet above the level of 

 the sea, on the summit of the North Downs, half way 

 between Guildford and Dorking. A picture of the 

 house and garden is shown in the accompanying repro- 

 duction of a photograph by my daughter. The situa- 

 tion is unique : only twenty-six miles from Hyde Park 

 Corner, we are as far from the madding crowd as if we 

 lived at ten times that distance. From our windows 

 we see no houses or sign of habitation ; the green 

 woods and fields spread out before us, and we wander 

 " fancy free " over heather and bracken and through 

 woods of larch, oak and beech, down Combe Bottom 

 to Shere, or along the tops, on the right to Newlands 



