To prevent the too free use of the turf by riders, a special track has been made for them, skirting the Common, and passing down one of the finest avenues. It may save the grass from being too much cut up, but to those who don’t feel called to gallop across the Common, the loss of the green sward under the tall feathery elms is a cause of regret. It is such, perhaps necessary, alterations which spoil the delusion of genuine country, otherwise so well counterfeited on Tooting Common. A charming time is when the may is out and the gorse ablaze with bloom, the chestnuts in blossom, and birds are singing all around; or if one happens to be there on a winter’s day, when it is too cold for loungers or holiday-makers, there are moments when the nearness of streets and trams could be forgotten. The frosty air, and dew-drops on the vivid green grass, the brown of the fallen leaves, the dark stems clear against an amber sky, with the intense blue distance, which London atmosphere produces so readily, combine harmoniously into a telling picture, which remains photographed “upon that inward eye, which is the gift of solitude.” The dream is as quickly dispelled. A sight, a sound, recalls the nearness of London, which makes its presence felt even when one is trying to play Hide-and-seek with the chimney-pots. How well Richard Jefferies, that inimitable writer on nature, describes his feelings in the neighbourhood of London, in spots only a little further from Hyde Park Corner than Tooting Beck:-- “Though my preconceived ideas were overthrown by the presence of so much that was beautiful and interesting close to London, yet in course of time I came to understand what was at first a dim sense of something wanting. In the shadiest lane, in the still pine-woods, on the hills of purple heather, after brief contemplation there arose a restlessness, a feeling that it was essential to be moving. In no grassy mead was there a nook where I could stretch myself in slumbrous ease and watch the swallows ever wheeling, wheeling in the sky. This was the unseen influence of mighty London. The strong life of the vast city magnetised me, and I felt it under the calm oaks.”