England; I seek only to record the simple annals of a quiet,
old-fashioned Gloucestershire hamlet and the country within walking
distance of it. Nor do I doubt that there are manor houses far more
beautiful and far richer in history even within a twenty-mile radius of
my own home. For instance, the ancient house of Chavenage by Tetbury, or
in the opposite direction, where the northern escarpments of the
Cotswolds rise out of the beautiful Evesham Vale, those historic
mediaeval houses of Southam and Postlip.

It is often said that in books like these we paint arcadias that never
did and never could exist on earth. To this I would answer that there
are many such abodes in country places, if only our minds are such as to
realise them. And, above all, let us be optimists in literature even
though we may be pessimists in life. Let us have all that is joyous and
bright in our books, and leave the trials and failures for the realities
of life. Let us in our literature avoid as much as possible the painful
side of human nature and the pains and penalties of human weakness; let
us endeavour to depict a state of existence as far as possible
approaching the Utopian ideal, though not necessarily the Nirvana of the
Buddhists nor the paradise of fools; let us look not downwards into the
depths of black despair, but upwards into the starry heavens; let us
gaze at the golden evening brightening in the west. Richard Jefferies
has taught us that such a literature is possible; and if we read his
best books, we may some day be granted that fuller soul he prayed for
and at length obtained. Would that we could all hear, as he heard, the
still small voice that whispers in the woods and among the wild flowers
and the spreading foliage by the brook!

To any one who might be thinking of becoming for the time being "a
tourist," and in that capacity visiting the Cotswolds, my advice is,