28 MAY 1932, Page 20

The English Countryside

The Open Air Year. (Times Publishing Co. 7s. 6d.)

IT was a happy thought on the part of The Times Publishing Company to reprint in book form a selection of the admirable articles on rural topics that have appeared from time to time in the columns of The Times. The book describes itself as an

anthology," and for once that overworked designation is not misapplied. The articles made delightful reading to many of us on their first fugitive appearance ; the collected volume will be a real acquisition to the library of every lover of the country. Any attempt to rank the papers in order of merit would he idle. Viscount Grey, who contributes a brief but charming preface to the book, singles out two or three of them for special mention. One might well be content to follow so competent a guide ; but enough to say that every one of them has an attraction of its own.

The photographs—or sonic of them at least—have suffered a little from reproduction. The view of the " Cottesmore in Full Cry," which figured so radiantly in the ample spaces of The Times, is a case in point. It is somehow darkened and contracted ; lost, or almost lost, is the intangible quality that seemed to breathe the very spirit of the autumn countryside. But as a whole the illustrations are excellent : a select picture gallery of rustic England for which we may well be grateful. Every reader will look first for what lie knows and loves best. Ilk terrarunt mini super manes angulus ridet. Turn to the view of St. Catherine's Hill, Winchester. It is enshrined in the memory of Wykehamists all the world over ; but even a non- Wykchamist may do homage to that gracious spot where

" . . . sweet Itchen's waters dream Betwixt the Tower and the Down."

No " corner of the world " can smile more sweetly.

Does the English country grow more precious to us, now that it is fast disappearing before our eyes ? We live in an age when country houses are standing empty, farms arc derelict, main roads are skating rinks, and hundreds and thousands of new small houses cover what were once green fields." It is sad, but true. " There is at least the selfish consolation," says the writer of one of The Times papers, " that something of the old ways, by Welsh hills or Sussex Downs, may last out our time." We must perforce be content with that. The current rolls on, and bears away our fragile bark through turbid waters to an uncharted sea. So be it ; let us be thankful that, as we arc swept along, there is still a familiar landmark to be noted here and there ; that the scent of mayblossom and meadow-sweet still drifts towards us from the-river banks ; that the thrush still sings in coppice and thicket, and the dragon-fly flashes emerald and sapphire in the sunlight.

There are more ways than one of loving nature. To some its delights. are inseparable from the pleasures of sport. A walk without a gun is no walk at all ; if rod and line arc left at home, the most limpid of streams chatters over its pebbles in vain. To each his taste ; but it is pleasant to be reminded that the sportsman, however ardent in the chase, is not always indifferent to its setting. Some are very much the reverse. Among them we may reckon Captain Hardy, who writes pleasantly, though with small pretension to literary dis- tinction, of " English Sport." " Perhaps, first among the charms of shooting," he says, " are the charms, of its environ- ment—beauty of the country, heather, stubbles, woodlands on a frosty morning." He has a feeling too for a feature of English country life that has undergone a depressing trans- formation. The English road. is changed. " Hills are abolished, corners removed, delightful old bridges demolished to make way for some hideous up-to-date ' structure." And worst of all, perhaps, a frigid kerb-stone has too often replaced the stretch of honest turf that once fringed our still unwidencd and unstraightened highways. lehabod: the glory his departed ! No doubt it is all for the best ; but the road as we knew it, the road that had altered little in character since stage coaches rattled over its surface or George Borrow trudged along it with his Honiany companions, has gone for ever. It has been "improved" and tidied out of all rmogni- thin. We live in utilitarian times, in which the graces must needs languish ; but as the charabancs and motor-lorries thunder by, let us spare a moment's regret that something racy of the soil, something characteristically English, is fast vanishing from our midst.

The appeal that nature makes to us defies exact analysis.

" There's . sun, moon and stars, brother, all sweet things ; there's likewise a wind on the heath." That gets near the secret perhaps ; but the woods and lanes and pastures speak to us with a myriad voices and to no two individuals in pre- cisely the same key. Great or small, homely or splendid, each note has a message to those with ears to hear and eyes to sec. " A sunset touch, a fancy from a flower-bell "—or it may be some common scent or sound, familiar yet of a freshness that no familiarity can deaden. The simpler the better. Lord Melbourne, we are told, found relaxation in watching the rooks at Windsor. He " could sit looking at them for an hour," without growing weary of their busy clatter. Who shall say that such hours were not well spent ? A Windsor landlady recently complained of these same rooks which, she declared, drove her lodgers away by their incessant cawing. Let us hope (in all charity) that her appeal will fall on deaf ears. The rooks cannot be spared ; may their friendly voices long be heard as the Spring twilight falls gently upon the elms and beeches of the Royal domain " Sir, let us take a walk down Fleet Street." Such was Dr. Johnson's retort to those who sang the praises of the country. The sage was an incorrigible Londoner ; but his London, let us remember, was still within walking distance of green fields and shady lanes. Streatham, where he spent so many happy days, was a rustic retreat. Even Fleet Street must have been a pleasanter spot. But let us follow his advice none the less, for it is in the heart of a great City, amid the roar of traffic and the jostling of the crowd, that the mind turns with keener zest to memories of Arcadian solitude, to thoughts of moor, or headland, of the banks of quiet streams, of the drone of bees above the Southdown thyme or the cry of waterfowl across East Anglian marshes.