CHAPTER XVI 



MY COUNTRY STUDY 



MY country study is a very pleasant sanctum, and, as I pass so 

 many hours of my life therein, it is appropriate that a niche 

 should be found for it in this book, especially as the book itself 

 was written within its inviting portals. 



Although facing north, and, therefore, cold in Winter, in 

 Spring, Summer, and Autumn it is a welcome retreat, where one 

 is able to gather his thoughts together for presentation to listener 

 or reader. 



The outlook from my study window is, for the best part of the 

 year, refreshing and stimulating. As I write, I have almost within 

 my grasp graceful clusters of the orange blossoms of Darwin's Bar- 

 berry. The fine colour is lit up by the western sun, the rays of 

 which fall warmly upon my face as I am seated at the writing- 

 table this gorgeous evening in May. To the right of me a fine 

 shrub of Portugal Laurel is putting on new growth, and trans- 

 forming itself into a pyramid of green, as compared with the dead 

 brown leaves which it recently possessed, the result of the severe 

 Winter of 1916-17, and, near by, the delightful yellowy- green of 

 Cupressus Stewartii, a favourite evergreen of mine, just catches 

 my eye. Adjoining it, the golden chains of Laburnum blossom, 

 and the unmatched beauty of a Pink Hawthorn, add a feast of 

 colour, which, when one is straining for inspiration, is a tonic for 

 both body and mind. As I have already told in the previous 

 chapter of the plants which grow in my front garden, and the 

 American Pillar Rose arch, which is one livid mass of colour when 

 June is here, I need not elaborate further. I should tell the 

 reader, however, that my country study looks out upon the 

 Icknield Way from which, as I write, a fussy Humble Bee has 

 just flown in through the open window. Hence this note ! 



This Icknield Way is the chief surviving ancient trackway 

 connecting East Anglia, and the whole eastern half of the regions 

 north of the Thames, with the west and the western half of the 

 south of England. It is a pre-Roman road, of great historical 



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