CHAPTER XLII
BEING A POSTSCRIPT TO THE SECOND EDITION.
It almost necessarily follows that in a book such as this, which in brief compass attempts to take some account of every interesting or charming spot in a large tract of country, there must be certain omissions. To the stranger the survey may seem adequate; but it is a hundred to one that a reader whose home is in Sussex will detect a flippancy or a want of true insight in the treatment of his own village. Nor (rightly) does he sit silent under the conviction.
I find that, with the keenest desire to be just in criticism, I have been unfair to several villages. I have been unfair, for example, to Burpham, which lies between Arundel and Amberley and of which nothing is said; and more than one reader has discovered unfairness to East Sussex. For this the personal equation is perhaps responsible: a West Sussex man, try as he will, cannot have the same enthusiasm for the other side of his county as for his own. For me the sun has always seemed to rise over Beachy Head, the most easterly of our Downs.
The call for a second edition has however enabled me to set right a few errors in the body of the book, and in this additional chapter to amplify and fortify here and there. The result must necessarily be disconnected; but a glance at the index will point the way to what is new.
E L.
