Weald in long parallel lines into the valley. The original settlers found a fertile country, settled down and divided their settlements nearly equally, because the country offered very little choice in early times. It is most helpful to make a special map to illustrate any particular subject into which you may be inquiring, isolating everything except the particular thing before your mind. The direction in which roads run, for instance, is a most interesting subject, and at once suggests a number of questions. Why do roads take their peculiar turnings? It may be that they denote the boundaries of old land holdings. But if so, the question arises why the land was divided in such an arbitrary way. We may well ask of many a country lane, why was it not made straight? To pursue the question may lead to interesting conclusions. Again, when you take a country walk, ask the name of every hill, of every field, of everything you see, because an enormous amount of past history which is rapidly being forgotten is contained in place names. It is very interesting to me, in going about this vast metropolis, to notice where in the suburbs there are traces of any old houses which show what has been the nucleus of an old village. To my eyes it is charming to see the old-fashioned shop fronts still to be found sometimes in the suburbs, amidst the appalling vulgarity of the new shop windows—the old shop fronts with bow windows and another bow window over the top of the doorway, the whole three fitted together in one design. These, which were built in the last century, and have now for the most part been abolished, have a real beauty
