One much-hidden entrance to a most sequestered spot I hope I do no wrong in revealing here.--London stretches out north-west almost to Uxbridge, nearly twenty miles out--that is, habitations line almost every inch of the way. After Uxbridge, the road is hard, dry, and comparatively uninteresting. But, near a cross-road, where is a house on either side, if you look carefully to the right you will dimly discern, beneath the shade of low-bending boughs, and almost hidden by these, a simple, unpretending stile. I recommend you to climb over it, for it is the entrance to a great, quiet, secluded spot, several acres in extent, thickly wooded with superb beeches and firs, so thickly wooded that the sky is invisible and the earth wholly in shade. But for the extreme kemptness of the underbrush (and the fact that you have just stepped out of the London road), you might be in a primæval forest of the West. Nor is this the sum of its beauty. High though it is above the surrounding country, embosomed in this forest is a lovely lake, exquisite in its colouring, reflecting, as it does, the cloud-flecked sky, and, all round its rim, the bending boughs of the beech. Typical of England are this lake and park. They are private property, of course; but the owner gives every wayfarer leave of access. Typical of England: tenacious of rights, yet just, nay, generous, to all. VII A Spring Morning in England § 8 He who knows not England I will here permit to peep into a page of a diary giving a glimpse of a morning dawdle on the Sussex Downs: "Royal Oak Inn, "Village of Poynings, "_27th March 18--_, 11.30 A.M. "The little maid is laying the other half of this table to supply me with eggs and bacon.... "I got me out of Brighton early, walked through Hassocks and Hurstpierpoint, and strolled on in any direction that invited (for I had the whole lovely day to myself), choosing chiefly byways and sequestered paths approached by stiles. "The day was superb. The sky, after a rainy night, was a rich deep blue, and across it sailed great white-grey clouds, the shadows of which chased each other--albeit solemnly and with dignity--over field and meadow. The fields, sown with corn already tall, were burnished green--they shone in the sunlight. The meadows were deeper in colour. The slopes of the downs changed their hues every moment; every acre changed, according as it caught the light direct, or through a thin cloud, or was immersed in shade by a big and thick one. The ditches and the little banks by the road, out of which the trim hedgerows sprang, were green with a hundred little plants and weeds--the dock, the nettle, groundsel, stick-a-bobs, ivy of every hue and shape, mullein, the alder well in leaf, and the hawthorn here and there in flower.--