A quiet road runs up a hill, and as soon as you pass along its green channel, between rising thickets where rabbits come out to gape, you feel as though walking into a poem by Walter de la Mare.  This road, if pursued, passes by a pleasing spot where four ways cross in an attenuated X. Off to one side is a field that is very theatrical in effect:  it always reminds us of a stage set for “As You Like It,” the Forest of Arden.  There are some gigantic oak trees and even some very papier-mache-looking stumps, all ready for the duke, “and other Lords, like Foresters,” to do their moralizing upon; and in place of the poor sequestered stag there is a very fine plushy cow, grazing, hard by a very agreeable morass.  At the back (L.U.E.) is discovered a pleasing ruin, the carcass of an ancient farmstead, whose stony ribs are thickset with brambles; and the pleasant melancholy of an abandoned orchard rounds off the scene in the wings, giving a fine place for Rosalind and Celia and the leg-weary Touchstone to abide their cue.

Choosing the left-hand arm of the X, and moving past wild rose bushes toward the even richer rose-garden of the sunset, the fastidious truant is ushered (as was our friend Endymion the other evening) upon a gentle meadow where a solitary house of white stucco begs for a poet as occupant.  This house, having been selected by Titania and ourself as a proper abode for Endymion and his family, we waited until sunset, frogsong, and all the other amenities of life in Salamis were suitable for the introduction of our guest to the scene.  This dwelling, having long lain untenanted, has a back door that stands ajar and we piloted the awe-struck lyrist inside.  Now nothing rages so merrily in the blood as the instinct of picking out houses for other people, houses that you yourself do not have to live in; and those Realtors whom we have dismayed by our lack of enthusiasm would have been startled to hear the orotund accents in which we vouched for that property, sewage, messuage, and all.  Here, we cried, is the front door (facing the sunset) where the postman will call with checks from your publishers; and here are the porcelain laundry tubs that will make glad the heart of the washerwoman (when you can get one).

Endymion’s guileless heart was strongly uplifted.  Not a question did he ask as to heating arrangements, save to show a mild spark in his eye when he saw the two fireplaces.  Plumbing was to him, we saw, a matter to be taken on faith.  His paternal heart was slightly perturbed by a railing that ran round the top of the stairs.  This railing, he feared, was so built that small and impetuous children would assuredly fall headlong through it, and we discussed means of thwarting such catastrophe.  But upstairs we found the room that caused our guest to glimmer with innocent cheer.  It had tall casement windows looking out upon a quiet glimpse of trees.  It had a raised recess, very apt for a bust of Pallas.  It had space for bookcases.  And then, on the windowsill, we found the dead and desiccated corpse of a swallow.  It must have flown in through a broken pane on the ground floor long ago and swooped vainly about the empty house.  It lay, pathetically, close against the shut pane.  Like a forgotten and un-uttered beauty in the mind of a poet, it lay there, stiffened and silent.