His face was of the sort which you will only see in England, being quizzical and vivacious, a little pinched together, and the hair on his head was a close mass of grey curls. His eyes were as bright as are harbour lights when they are first lit towards the closing of our winter evenings: they shone upon the daylight. His mouth was firm, but even in repose it permanently, though very slightly, smiled. I asked him why he took such pleasure in the view. He said it was because everything he saw was a part of his own country, and that just as some holy men said that to be united with God, our Author, was the end and summit of man’s effort, so to him who was not very holy, to mix, and have communion, with his own sky and earth was the one banquet that he knew: he also told me (which cheered me greatly) that alone of all the appetites this large affection for one’s own land does not grow less with age, but rather increases and occupies the soul. He then made me a discourse as old men will, which ran somewhat thus:-- “Each thing differs from all others, and the more you know, the more you desire or worship one thing, the more does that stand separate: and this is a mystery, for in spite of so much individuality all things are one.... How greatly out of all the world stands out this object of my adoration and of my content! you will not find the like of it in all the world! It is England, and in the love of it I forget all enmities and all despairs.” He then bade me look at a number of little things around, and see how particular they were: the way in which the homes of Englishmen hid themselves, and how, although a great town lay somewhat to our right not half a march away, there was all about us silence, self-possession, and repose. He bade me also note the wind-blown thorns, and the yew-trees, bent over from centuries of the south-west wind, and the short, sweet grass of the Downs, unfilled and unenclosed, and the long waves of woods which rich men had stolen and owned, and which yet in a way were property for us all. “There is more than one,” said I in anger, “who so little understands his land that he will fence the woods about and prevent the people from coming and going: making a show of them, like some dirty town-bred fellow who thinks that the Downs and the woods are his villa-garden, bought with gold.” The little old man wagged his crooked forefinger in front of his face and looked exceedingly knowing with his bright eyes, and said: “Time will tame all that! Not they can digest the county, but the county them. Their palings shall be burnt upon cottage hearths, and their sons shall go back to be lackeys as their fathers were. But this landscape shall always remain.”