Some of her Towns Farther north lie the Cotswolds, where
if you take a little trouble you can discover solitude, beautiful old things, heart- stirring, the spirit of ancient England. North and west of these lies Warwickshire, perhaps the only English county that has not been advertised as a holiday resort. Here, too, you will find ways and means of escape from the ties of the other eleven months. Simple, of course, the resources of these places, but real England is herself simple, remember. I do not suggest you should look for her at Brighton, though you might very easily find her in her own towns. Is there an escape-town better than Bath, the almost flawless eighteenth-century picture? It is not in the least like any other place in England or anywhere else—but perhaps you never thought of it in that way. Do you know Shaftesbury on its hill, where you look out over the rolling Dcrset country through the loopholes of little o'.d streets? Alston, precariously balanced on the side of a Northumberland moor, the heart of the wildest scene in the British Isles? Ross, in the heart of all the hearts of England, red Hereford- shire with its mighty umber, its great estates, its incom- parable dignity?
Take these and others, Stamford, Bristol, Malmesbury, as starting-points, headquarters, rest-houses, what you will (even Bath, still powdered, you will find, hooped, patched and scandalous), for your explorings. You will, at the end of it, regard with new affection that venerable, faithful, rumbling old car which has shown you an England you may not have thought had survived. That England will always survive, which is all the more reason why you should see as much of her as your own span of life allows, and as swiftly as may be.
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