SOUTH-EAST LONDON 229 



things, fills the dim interior with a mystic 

 light, a strange glory; and the oaks, green 

 with moss, are pillars of emerald, and the tall 

 red-barked fir-trees are pillars of fire. 



Some reader, remembering the exceeding 

 foulness of London itself, and the polluting 

 cloud which it casts wide over the country, 

 to this side or that according as the wind 

 blows, may imagine that no place in touch 

 with the East-end of the metropolis can be 

 quite so fresh as I have painted Bostell. But 

 Nature's self-purifying power is very great. 

 Those who are well acquainted with outer 

 London, within a radius of, say, ten miles of 

 . Charing Cross, must know spots as fresh and 

 unsullied as you would find in the remote 

 Quantocks ; secluded bits of woodland where 

 you can spend hours out of sight and sound 

 of human life, forgetting London and the 

 things that concern London, or by means of 

 the mind's magic changing them into some- 

 thing in harmony with your own mood and 

 wholly your own : 



Annihilating all that's made 



To a green thought in a green shade. 



