Railway as
far as Swindon. Those of you who did so with their eyes open, have been
aware, soon after leaving the Didcot station, of a fine range of chalk
hills running parallel with the railway on the left-hand side as you go
down, and distant some two or three miles, more or less, from the line.
The highest point in the range is the White Horse Hill, which you come
in front of just before you stop at the Shrivenham station. If you love
English scenery, and have a few hours to spare, you can't do better, the
next time you pass, than stop at the Farringdon road or Shrivenham
station, and make your way to that highest point. And those who care for
the vague old stories that haunt country sides all about England, will
not, if they are wise, be content with only a few hours' stay; for,
glorious as the view is the neighbourhood is yet more interesting for
its relics of bygone times. I only know two English neighbourhoods
thoroughly, and in each, within a circle of five miles, there is enough
of interest and beauty to last any reasonable man his life. I believe
this to be the case almost throughout the country; but each has a
special attraction, and none can be richer than the one I am speaking of
and going to introduce you to very particularly; for on this subject I
must be prosy; so those that don't care for England in detail may skip
the chapter.

O young England! young England! You who are born into these racing
railroad times, when there's a Great Exhibition, or some monster sight,
every year; and you can get over a couple of thousand miles of ground
for three pound ten, in a five weeks' holiday; why don't you know more
of your own birthplaces? You're all in the ends of the earth, it seems
to me, as soon as you get your necks out of the educational collar, for
midsummer holidays, long vacations, or what not. Going round Ireland,
with a return ticket, in a fortnight; dropping your copies of Tennyson
on the tops of Swiss mountains; or pulling down the Danube in Oxford
racing-boats. And when you get home for a quiet fortnight, you turn the
steam off, and lie on your backs in the paternal garden, surrounded by
the last batch of books from Mudie's library, and half bored to death.
Well, well! I know it has its good side. You all patter French more or
less, and perhaps German; you have seen men and cities, no doubt, and
have your opinions, such as they are, about schools of painting, high
art, and all that; have seen the pict