WHITE’S SELBORNE TODAY 
By CURTIS BROWN 
N OT one American tourist in a thousand 
finds inclination or opportunity when 
in England to visit the tiny, out-of-the- 
world village of Selborne, where Gilbert 
White spent most of his days in the eigh¬ 
teenth century. 'This neglect of the place 
makes it so much the more precious to the 
few who stray thither from the nearest rail¬ 
road station at Alton, several miles away, 
and rather more than an hour’s journey by 
train southward from London. 
Judging by the old prints, Selborne looks 
today almost exactly as it did when the 
famous curate of the picturesque parish 
church roamed about in the fields and woods, 
considerably more interested, apparently, in 
birds, reptiles and beasts than in the spirit¬ 
ual affairs of the parish, or the doings of 
men in the great world beyond the hills that 
bounded his vision. One might suppose 
that the threatened loss of England’s colo¬ 
nies in America, for instance, would have 
found some mention at his pen, but the only 
letter written in the middle of 1776, when 
the situation came to a crisis, is devoted 
chiefly to the account of a cat which, being 
deprived of its kittens, adopted a helpless 
little hare that had been brought into the 
house, suckled it, and manifested much ma¬ 
ternal delight in its society. 
Selborne is as tar away from turmoil now 
as it was then. The most nervous and rest¬ 
less of Americans, strolling down the one 
straggling village street past quaint little 
thatched cottages, and on to the rambling 
ivy-covered house that looks today almost 
exactly as it did when the Reverend White 
kept bachelor hall therein, is certain to feel 
some of the drowsy, calm peacefulness of 
the place descending upon him like a bene¬ 
diction. The suggestion arises that if he 
would find serene happiness he would do 
well to stay here for the rest of his days and 
forget, as completely as the comfortable 
curate who unsuspectingly brought fame to 
Selborne, all about ambitions, and commerce 
and wars, and become wholly absorbed in 
the greater affairs of Nature, spending after- 
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