EASY-CHAIR MEMORIES 73 



that great crowd who has eyes to see, and 

 a heart in sympathy with Nature, could be 

 brought here to sit alone, as I am sitting 

 now, on a lovely spring morning. That, of 

 course, is an impossible wish ; it is only 

 accidentally that I am alone, and to me it 

 is surprising, remembering that these grotesque, 

 ghost-haunted, weird old trunks, with their 

 wide-spreading leafy branches, are within a 

 short railway journey (by Great Western Rail- 

 way) from Paddington, and from Slough and 

 Windsor by motor omnibuses. 



The younger beeches and the graceful silver 

 birches are now in their first freshness of 

 delicate green mantles but the young buds 

 of many of the spreading branches of the 

 patriarchs are still unfolded; and the grand 

 old oaks some of them probably a thousand 

 years old, and of enormous circumference 

 have still to put forth their foliage. The 

 bracken is only just forcing itself upwards 

 through the old brown and dead remains of 

 last year's glory. The soft moss is tender and 

 pleasant to a footsore pedestrian. I do not 

 wish to gush or to be sentimental, but I do 

 say that I find it pleasant to be here, alone 



