give you in detail, as my father would like, MY opinion on it--Emma's
slightly differs. Position:--about 1/4 of a mile from the small village of
Down in Kent--16 miles from St. Paul's--8 1/2 miles from station (with many
trains) which station is only 10 from London. This is bad, as the drive
from [i.e. on account of] the hills is long. I calculate we are two hours
going from London Bridge. Village about forty houses with old walnut trees
in the middle where stands an old flint church and the lanes meet.
Inhabitants very respectable--infant school--grown up people great
musicians--all touch their hats as in Wales and sit at their open doors in
the evening; no high road leads through the village. The little pot-house
where we slept is a grocer's shop, and the landlord is the carpenter--so
you may guess the style of the village. There are butcher and baker and
post-office. A carrier goes weekly to London and calls anywhere for
anything in London and takes anything anywhere. On the road [from London]
to the village, on a fine day the scenery is absolutely beautiful: from
close to our house the view is very distant and rather beautiful, but the
house being situated on a rather high tableland has somewhat of a desolate
air. There is a most beautiful old farm-house, with great thatched barns
and old stumps of oak trees, like that of Skelton, one field off. The
charm of the place to me is that almost every field is intersected (as alas
is ours) by one or more foot-paths. I never saw so many walks in any other
county. The country is extraordinarily rural and quiet with narrow lanes
and high hedges and hardly any ruts. It is really surprising to think
London is only 16 miles off. The house stands very badly, close to a tiny
lane and near another man's field. Our field is 15 acres and flat, looking
into flat-bottomed valleys on both sides, but no view from the drawing-
room, which faces due south, except on our flat field and bits of rather
ugly distant horizon. Close in front there are some old (very productive)
cherry trees, walnut trees, yew, Spanish chestnut, pear, old larch, Scotch
fir and silver fir and old mulberry trees, [which] make rather a pretty