overlooking the sea. It was an ideal spot for an artist to live, and it
was chiefly for its glorious view that Mr. Castleton had chosen it. He
was intensely sensitive to his surroundings, and preferred a picturesque
cottage, however inconvenient, to the comforts of an unaesthetic, bow-
windowed, modern, red-brick, suburban residence.

"Romance before everything!" he declared. "It's impossible to paint
unless you're in the right atmosphere. English scenery is getting spoilt
and vulgarised to such a degree that there'll soon be none of it left to
sketch. Where are the beautiful villages of thirty years ago? Gone--most
of them! The thatched roofs replaced by corrugated iron, and the hedges
clipped close to please the motorists. I defy anybody to make a
successful picture out of a clipped hedge! Even the gnarled apple trees
are being cut down and replaced by market gardeners' 'choice saplings.'
Picturesque England will soon be a thing of the past! I consider
Chagmouth one of the last strongholds for an artist, and I'm going to
live here as long as it remains unspoilt. There's enough work to keep me
busy for several years at any rate."

It is part of an artist's business to move about from place to place in
quest of fresh subjects. Mr. Castleton had spent some years at
Porthkeverne, and having, from a professional point of view, exhausted
that neighbourhood, he had transferred himself and his family to a new
horizon. He had a genius for discovering his right niche, and he had been
fortunate enough to light upon exactly the place that appealed to him. It
would not have suited everybody. It was a long low house, made of three
fishermen's cottages thrown into one, built so close to the edge of the
cliff that it seemed like a sea-bird's nest, with windows overlooking the
channel and the harbour, and a strip of stony garden behind. Inside, the
accommodation was somewhat cramped, but the rooms, if small, were quaint,