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NATURE NOTES. 
which I never travel, and handed it to the gentlemen, who took it 
with, I thought, rather an air of surprise. 
Such an opportunity to interview a celebrity does not occur to 
an American reporter every day, so I at once commenced by re- 
marking that I came from America, where Mr. White’s book 
was much read and admired. A bow was the only reply. “ May 
I ask, sir,” I pursued, “ do you find the village much altered 
since your time ? ” 
“ Not so much as I should have thought would have been 
the case,” he replied. “ Of course my own house ” — and here I 
thought I detected a slight sigh — “ is very greatly changed in 
recent years. I should not have known what to do with so vast 
a dwelling as it now is. I even thought that the “ great parlour ” 
which I built was a considerable addition ; indeed, my good 
friend, John Mulso, used to speak of it as one of the finest 
rooms in the county ; but he was ever enthusiastic. I should 
not have indulged myself with this extravagance had I not 
designed my house to be a home for my brother’s family.” 
“ Yes,” I said, “sir, I remember your verse” ; 
“ ‘ There like a picture lies my lowly seat ; ’ 
it is quite a fine villa, now, is it not ? ” 
“ Yet I liked it best as it was,” he replied ; “ nor can I 
entirely admire the vertu shown in your modern style of archi- 
tecture. Perhaps,” he continued, “ the village shops are the most 
altered. Plate glass was, indeed, a scarce luxury in my day ; 
my poor village friends would have been frightened to enter 
such glittering places.” 
“ Was there a school, sir, may I ask, in your time ? ” 
“ Why, no, not what you would call a regular village school, 
I think,” he answered. “ I remember that when my old friend, 
Mr. Etty, died, I resumed the curacy of Selborne after many 
years’ interval, because his successor, Mr. Taylor, or, rather, 
his lady (Miss Lisle her name had been, of one of our best 
Hampshire families) so disliked the idea of residing in the parish 
that they were at first absentees. It then became my duty to 
make a report to the Bishop of Winchester about the education 
of the parish. I remember stating that we were too poor a 
parish to maintain a schoolmaster, but that we had a dame 
school where the children were taught reading, writing, sewing, 
and knitting. My father laid out in land the sum of ;^ioo, which 
my grandfather had bequeathed as an endowment for educating 
the poorer children.” 
“ The present vicarage is quite modern, I think,” I remarked. 
“ Quite,” was the reply. “ 1 should have thought it a pity to 
pull down the old one, which was good enough for my grand- 
father. It was an old-fashioned timbered house, which you may 
remember I described slightly in my Antiquities of Selborne.” 
“ I hope, sir, that you approve of the new water supply, 
established in your honour,” I here remarked. 
