Ask me not how they came, These songs of love and death, These dreams of a futile stage, These thumb-nails seen in the street: Ask me not how nor why, But take them for your own, Dear Wife of twenty years, Knowing--O, who so well?-- You it was made the man That made these songs of love, Death, and the trivial rest: So that, your love elsewhere, These songs, or bad or good-- How should they ever have been? [Illustration: _Sompting._] [Sidenote: SOMPTING] Of the villages to the west we have caught glimpses in an earlier chapter--Goring, Angmering, Ferring, and so forth; to the north and east are Broadwater, Sompting and Lancing. Broadwater is perhaps a shade too near Worthing to be interesting, but Sompting, lying under the Downs, is unspoiled, with its fascinating church among the elms and rocks. The church (of which Mr. Griggs has made an exquisite drawing) was built nearly eight hundred years ago. Within are some curious fragments of sculpture, and a tomb which Mr. Lower considered to belong to Richard Bury, Bishop of Chichester in the reign of Henry VIII. East of Sompting lie the two Lancings, North Lancing on the hill, South Lancing on the coast. East of North Lancing, the true village, stands Lancing College, high above the river, with its imposing chapel, a landmark in the valley of the Adur and far out to sea. [Illustration: _Lancing._] CHAPTER XVII BRIGHTON A decline in interest--The storied past of Brighton--Dr. Russell's discovery--The First Gentleman in Europe--The resources of the Steyne--Promenade Grove--A loyal journalist--The Brighton bathers--Smoaker and Martha Gunn--The Prince and cricket--The Nonpareil at work--Byron at Brighton--Hazlitt's observation--Horace Smith's verses--Sidney Smith on the M.C.--Captain Tattersall--Pitt and the heckler--Dr. Johnson in the sea--Mrs. Pipchin and Dr. Blimber--The Brighton fishermen--Richard Jefferies on the town--The Cavalier--Mr. Booth's birds--Old Pottery. Brighton is interesting only in its past. To-day it is a suburb, a lung, of London; the rapid recuperator of Londoners with whom the pace has been too severe; the Mecca of day-excursionists, the steady friend of invalids and half-pay officers. It is vast, glittering, gay; but it is not interesting.