Probably Our
Great-Grandfathers Didn't Even Know They Were Sick; At All
Events, Those Who Had To Live In The
Vicinity of the sea were
satisfied to be a little distance from it, out of sight of its
grey desolation
And, if possible, out of hearing of its
"accents disconsolate." This may be seen anywhere on our
coasts; excepting the seaports and fishing settlements, the
towns and villages are almost always some distance from the
sea, often in a hollow or at all events screened by rising
ground and woods from it. The modern seaside place has, in
most cases, its old town or village not far away but quite as
near as the healthy ancients wished to be.
The old village nearest to our little naked and ugly modern
town was discovered at a distance of about two miles, but it
might have been two hundred, so great was the change to its
sheltered atmosphere. Loitering in its quiet streets among
the old picturesque brick houses with tiled or thatched roofs
and tall chimneys - ivy and rose and creeper-covered, with a
background of old oaks and elms - I had the sensation of having
come back to my own home. In that still air you could hear
men and women talking fifty or a hundred yards away, the cry
or laugh of a child and the clear crowing of a cock, also the
smaller aerial sounds of nature, the tinkling notes of tits
and other birdlings in the trees, the twitter of swallows and
martins, and the "lisp of leaves and ripple of rain." It was
sweet and restful in that home-like place, and hard to leave
it to go back to the front to face the furious blasts once
more.
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