e of the facts of natural history; and the fact is that it is
this, and not publicity or importance, that hurts. It is for the modern
world to judge whether such instincts are indeed danger signals; and
whether the hurting of moral as of material nerves is a tocsin and a
warning of nature.

THE POET AND THE CHEESE

There is something creepy in the flat Eastern Counties; a brush of the
white feather. There is a stillness, which is rather of the mind than of
the bodily senses. Rapid changes and sudden revelations of scenery, even
when they are soundless, have something in them analogous to a movement
of music, to a crash or a cry. Mountain hamlets spring out on us with
a shout like mountain brigands. Comfortable valleys accept us with open
arms and warm words, like comfortable innkeepers. But travelling in the
great level lands has a curiously still and lonely quality; lonely even
when there are plenty of people on the road and in the market-place.
One's voice seems to break an almost elvish silence, and something
unreasonably weird in the phrase of the nursery tales, "And he went a
little farther and came to another place," comes back into the mind.

In some such mood I came along a lean, pale road south of the fens, and
found myself in a large, quiet, and seemingly forgotten village. It was
one of those places that instantly produce a frame of mind which, it may
be, one afterwards decks out with unreal details. I dare say that grass
did not really grow in the streets, but I came away with a curious
impression that it did. I dare say the marketplace was not literally
lonely and without sign of life, but it left the vague impression of
being so. The place was large and even loose in design, yet it had the
air of something hidden away and always overlooked. It seemed shy, like
a big yokel; the low roofs seemed to be ducking behind the hedges and
railings; and the chimneys holding their breath. I came into it in that
dead hour of the afternoon which is neither after lunch nor before tea,
nor anything else even on a half-holiday; and I had a fantastic feeling
that I had strayed into a lost and extra hour that is not numbered in
the twenty-four.

I entered an inn which stood openly in the market-place yet was almost
as private as a private house. Those who talk of "public-houses" as if
they were all one problem would have been both puzzled and pleased with
such a place. In the front window a stout old lady in black w