ered on the stones above the doors;
the apple-trees are mossed and ancient; countless generations of
sparrows have bred in the thatched roofs, and thereon have chirped out
their lives. In every room of the place men have been born, men have
died. On Dreamthorp centuries have fallen, and have left no more trace
than have last winter's snowflakes. This commonplace sequence and
flowing on of life is immeasurably affecting. That winter morning when
Charles lost his head in front of the banqueting-hall of his own
palace, the icicles hung from the eaves of the houses here, and the
clown kicked the snowballs from his clouted shoon, and thought but of
his supper when, at three o'clock, the red sun set in the purple mist.
On that Sunday in June while Waterloo was going on, the gossips, after
morning service, stood on the country roads discussing agricultural
prospects, without the slightest suspicion that the day passing over
their heads would be a famous one in the calendar. Battles have been
fought, kings have died, history has transacted itself; but, all
unheeding and untouched, Dreamthorp has watched apple-trees redden, and
wheat ripen, and smoked its pipe, and quaffed its mug of beer, and
rejoiced over its new-born children, and with proper solemnity carried
its dead to the churchyard. As I gaze on the village of my adoption I
think of many things very far removed, and seem to get closer to them.
The last setting sun that Shakspeare saw reddened the windows here, and
struck warmly on the faces of the hinds coming home from the fields.
The mighty storm that raged while Cromwell lay a-dying made all the
oak-woods groan round about here, and tore the thatch from the very
roofs I gaze upon. When I think of this, I can almost, so to speak,
lay my hand on Shakspeare and on Cromwell. These poor walls were
contemporaries of both, and I find something affecting in the thought.
The mere soil is, of course, far older than either, but _it_ does not
touch one in the same way. A wall is the creation of a human hand, the
soil is not.

This place suits my whim, and I like it better year after year. As
with everything else, since I began to love it I find it gradually
growing beautiful. Dreamthorp--a castle, a chapel, a lake, a
straggling strip of gray houses, with a blue film of smoke over
all--lies embosomed in emerald. Summer, with its daisies, runs up to
every cottage door. From the little height where I am now sitting, I