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House £5? Garden 
whole of Sidney’s nature, his chivalry and his 
learning, his thirst for adventure, his tendency 
to extravagance, his freshness of tone, his 
tenderness and childlike simplicity of heart, 
his affected and false sentiment, his keen 
sense ot pleasure and delight, pours itself 
out in the pastoral melody, forced, tedious 
and yet strangely beautiful of his Arcadia." 
H ere, then, was a man, travelled, learned 
and cultured, poetical to a degree, with a 
wonderful appreciation of nature, choosing 
to write an ideal pastoral of an ideal country, 
and drawing his inspirations from his own 
home in the garden county of England. 
Were Sidney to return to earth to-day, I 
doubt not that though so much has changed, 
the brilliant chivalry of his own time having 
yielded to the business ideals of an age which 
is more deeply earnest, though less pictur¬ 
esque than his, he would still find rest and 
stimulus in this same little stream, winding 
quietly through the same meadows, and in 
the noble view from his castle windows look¬ 
ing down the lovely garden, across by the 
same church tower, around which still clusters 
the quiet little village, losing itself on the 
wooded slopes which form the fair setting for 
this noble gem of Penshurst. 
275 
THE LONG WALK AT PENSHURST 
