THE WOOD HOME 3 



trees we climbed and bird-nested in ; their networks 

 of sun and shade in full summer ; their living tints at 

 the birth of the leaf in early spring no tints or 

 colours in the wood year burn with such a look of life 

 as those of oaks and beeches of April and May ; and 

 the curious configuration of their familiar branches, 

 even their familiar twigs, as set against the cold, pure 

 washes of December sunsets. 



These are the homelike touches with which a 

 native or long known and favourite wood is always 

 pleasing us. Besides, the wood holds us by another 

 thing. It holds us charmed by the sense of 

 mystery in which it seems steeped at almost every 

 hour and in almost every state of light and foliage, 

 and in each of the seasons. The deeper the wood, 

 the deeper the mystery. And this wood is, for an 

 English one, very deep. It is some miles round. 

 This of itself does not imply depth hi the sense of 

 quiet and absolute seclusion. It need scarcely imply 

 an acreage in four figures, though in this case I think 

 it does, with the common in the midst of the woods, 

 reach nearly to the thousandth acre. There are 

 stretches of forest, Crown or national land, which cover 

 a large extent of country, and yet are wanting in that 

 depth of quiet and aloofness which is great part of the 

 wood charm. Where such stretches of forest fail is 

 that they are more or less civilised : there is a sense 

 of planting about them ; enclosures are marked out 

 here and there. Public ways lie through them, bridle- 



