der critically
for a moment those well-known lines in which BROWNING says--

"Hark where my blossom'd pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field,"

and then goes on to speak of "the wise thrush" on "the bent spray's edge"
as "singing his song twice over." It is pretty obvious that the reason the
poet assigns to this action on the bird's part is not the correct one.
Evidently the part of the tree on which it was sitting was on the other
side of the hedge in the next-door fellow's garden, and it was
conscientiously trying to allot one performance to each of the two rival
householders. But I seem to have wandered a little from the ancient home.

Come with me in imagination, reader, and let us have a look at it together.
The fourth house to the left in this winding road that fringes the common,
you see it standing there gazing a little wistfully, yet with a quiet air
of semi-detachment, out over the wide expanse of green. Half right and half
left are two monstrous blocks of red brick flats overlooking it with a
thousand envious eyes. The middle distance is dotted pleasantly with
hawthorn bushes and the pretty pieces of sandwich-paper that are always the
harbingers of London's Spring. Beyond these things, and far away to the
front, you may detect on clear days a white church-tower nestling like
Swiss milk amongst immemorial trees. And this view is mine--mine, like the
old home. If we linger for a moment in the road we shall probably see the
scornful face of the proud usurper at one of the windows calmly enjoying
this view of mine, all unconscious that I, the rightful owner, am standing
beneath. Does it not remind you of the films?--

"_Charles Carruthers_, an outcast from his ancestral halls, eyes mournfully
the scene of merry junketing within. _Charles Carruthers_--_blick!
blick!_"--and you see him eyeing mournfully outside--"_blick! blick!_"--and
you see the junketers eating his junket within.

On looking back in a calmer mood on the lines which I have just written, I
feel it possible that I may have let my emotions run away with me and
conveyed a slightly false impression. I may have suggested that the old
home has belonged to my family since Domesday Book or dear-knows-when or
some other historic date in our island story. That would not be strictly
true. As a matter of fact I have never lived in the house, nor have any of
my relations either. It has belonged to me, to be quite accurate, since
March 25th, 1920, and