Literary by-paths in old England . y whichreared its head here five hundred years ago. Yetnot quite all. In the corner of the farmhousegarden is a small arbour, bright still with thetiles which sandalled monkish feet pressed in thefar-off years. What a gulf yawns between ourtime and theirs ! But are we on the right sideof it? By the letter of law, Selborne belongs to LordSelborne, and other landowners; by the gavel-kind of genius it belongs to Gilbert here, nurtured here, pastor here, died here,buried here, — such is the record of his simplehistory. The village is permeated with his
Literary by-paths in old England . y whichreared its head here five hundred years ago. Yetnot quite all. In the corner of the farmhousegarden is a small arbour, bright still with thetiles which sandalled monkish feet pressed in thefar-off years. What a gulf yawns between ourtime and theirs ! But are we on the right sideof it? By the letter of law, Selborne belongs to LordSelborne, and other landowners; by the gavel-kind of genius it belongs to Gilbert here, nurtured here, pastor here, died here,buried here, — such is the record of his simplehistory. The village is permeated with his pres-ence still ; his footprints may be traced throughthe length and breadth of the parish. It is a feasible theory that Selborne itself isresponsible for what Gilbert White was and did. 132 IN OLD ENGLAND Environment is a persistent moulder of character. Selborne, says Frank Buckland, was a bigbird-cage in which White himself was enclosedeven more than the birds. To-day it is a pil-grimage which only the earnest devotee thinks. The Plestob of making; there are five full miles between itand the nearest railway station. In Whitestime the village was even more effectually cutoff from the outer world. Then the only ap-proach was along those fearsome hanging lanes,which, disused for many a year, still survive ina wild jungle condition as samples of the roads 133 LITERARY BY-PATHS our forefathers traversed. Few were the visitorscoming and going ; the inaccessibility of the par-ish was responsible for it becoming a nest ofsmugglers. White was driven to seek compan-ionship among the fowls of the air. Little change has come over Selborne duringthe hundred-odd years that have passed sinceGilbert Whites death. From the entrance tothe village on the Alton Road to a hundredyards or so east of the house in which he lived,the change would hardly be perceptible even tohis keen eye. The old village-green — vulgarlycalled the Plestor, says White — is unaltered,save that the sycamore-tree
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