own, they always are. They
endure enormously, _in saecula saeculorum_. Storms drive over them,
mists and rains blot them out; rarely they are shrouded in a fleece of
snow. In spring the clouds and the light hold races up their flanks;
in summer they seem to drowse like weary monsters in the still and
fervent heat. They are never profoundly affected by such changes of
Nature's face; grow not awful, sharing her wrath, nor dangerously fair
when she woos them with kisses to love. They are the quiet and sober
spokesmen of earth, clad in Quaker greys and drabs. They show no
crimson at sunset, no gilded livery at dawn. The grey deepens to cool
purple, the brown glows to russet at such festal times. Early in the
spring they may drape themselves in tender green, or show their sides
dappled with the white of sheep. Flowers they bear, but secretly;
little curious orchids, bodied like bees, eyed like spiders, flecked
with the blood-drops of Attis or Adonis or some murdered
shepherd-boy; pale scabious, pale cowslip, thyme that breathes sharp
fragrance, "aromatic pain," as you crush it, potentilla, lady's
slipper, cloudy blue milkwort, toad-flax that shows silver to the
wind. Such as these they flaunt not, but wear for choiceness. You
would not see them unless you knew them there. For denizens they have
the hare, the fox, and the badger. Redwings, wheatears, peewits, and
airy kestrels are the people of their skies.

I love above all the solitude they keep, and to feel the pulsing of
the untenanted air. The shepherd and his sheep, the limping hare,
lagging fox, wheeling, wailing plover; such will be your company: you
may dip deeply into valleys where no others will be by, hear the sound
of your own heart, or the shrilling of the wind in the upland bents. I
have heard, indeed, half a mile above me, the singing of the great
harps of wire which stretch from Sarum to Shaftesbury along the
highest ridge; but such a music is no disturbance of the peace;
rather, it assures you of solitude, for you wouldn't hear it were you
not ensphered with it alone. There's a valley in particular, lying
just under Chesilbury, where I choose most to be. Chesilbury, a huge
grass encampment, three hundred yards square, with fosse and rampart
still sharp, with a dozen gateways and three mist-pools within its
ambit, which stands upon the ancient road and dominates two valleys.
Below that, coming up from the south, is my charmed valley. There, I
know, the being