SURREY 99 



the winding-sheet and her worms to fill in the grave, -" "^^ ^ 

 and her grass to cover it pitifully up, adding flowers — as 

 an unknown hand added them to the grave of Nero. I 

 like to see the preliminaries of this toil where Nature tries 

 her hand at mossing the factory roof, rusting the deserted 

 railway metals, sowing grass over the deserted platforms 

 and flowers of rose-bay on ruinous hearths and walls. 

 It is a real satisfaction to see the long narrowing wedge 

 of irises that runs alongside and between the rails of the 

 South-Eastern and Chatham Railway almost into the 

 heart of London. And there are many kinds of weather 

 when the air is full of voices prophesying desolation. The 

 outer suburbs have almost a moorland fascination when 

 fog lies thick and orange-coloured over their huge flat 

 wastes of grass, expectant of the builder, but does not 

 quite conceal the stark outlines of a traction engine, some 

 procumbent timber, a bonfire and frantic figures darting 

 about it, and aerial scaffolding far away. Other fields, yet 

 unravished but menaced, the fog restores to a primeval 

 state. And what a wild noise the wind makes in the 

 telegraph wires as in wintry heather and gorse! When 

 the waste open spaces give way to dense streets there is 

 a common here and a lawn there, where the poplar leaves, 

 if it be November, lie taintless on the grass, and the 

 starlings talk sweet and shrill and cold in the branches, 

 and nobody cares to deviate from the asphalte path to the 

 dewy grass : the houses beyond the green mass themselves 

 gigantic, remote, dim, and the pulse of London beats low 

 and inaudible, as if she feared the irresistible enemy that 

 is drawing its lines invisibly and silently about her on 

 every side. If a breeze arises it makes that sound of the 

 dry curled leaves chafing along the pavement; at night 



H 2 



