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First and Last by Hilaire Belloc
page 220 of 229 (96%)

Now one such group of valleys there was, hill above hill, forest above
forest, and beyond it a great noble range, unwooded and high against
heaven, guarding it, which I for my part knew when first I knew anything
of this world. There is a high place under fir trees, a place of sand
and bracken, in South England whence such a view was always present to
eye in childhood and "There," said I to myself (even in childhood) "a
man should make his habitation." In those valleys is the proper off-set
for man.

And so there was.

It was a little place which had grown up as my county grows. The house
throwing out arms and layers. One room was panelled in the oak of the
seventeenth century--but that had been a novelty in its time, for the
walls upon which the panels stood were of the late fifteenth, oak and
brick intermingled. Another room was large and light built in the manner
of one hundred and fifty years ago, which people call Georgian. It had
been thrown out south (which is quite against our older custom, for our
older houses looked east and west to take all the sun and to present a
corner to the south-west and the storms. So they stand still). It had
round it a solid cornice which the modern men of the towns would have
called ugly, but there was ancestry in it. Then, further on this house
had modern roominess stretching in one new wing after another; and it
had a great steading and there was a copse and some six acres of land.
Over a deep ravine looked the little town that was the mother of the
place, and altogether it was enclosed, silent, and secure.

"The fish that misses the hook regrets the worm." If this is not a
Chinese proverb it ought to be. That little farm and steading and those
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