Читать книгу Neighbourhood: A year's life in and about an English village онлайн

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For my part, such as my work is, I have done it, every stroke, in Windlecombe for half a lifetime back, and may claim to have fairly won my villagership. And what it is worth to me—how it is sweetened by daily touch of kind hearts and grip of clean hands; what the country sunshine means, filtering through the vine-leaves of my workroom window; and what the song of the robin that sits on the ivied gate-post without, or, in winter-time, comes fluttering and tapping at the old bull’s-eye panes for crumbs; how the daily walk, in wood or meadow or by riverside, brings ever its new marvel or revelation of unimagined beauty; and how, above all, the lives of the quaint, courageous, clever folk, in whose midst Destiny has thrown me, overbrim with all traits human, delectably mortal, divinely out-of-place—these, and many other aspects of villagership, I have here tried to set down in plain words and meaning, believing that what has proved of interest and profit to one very human, always erring, often doubting soul, may do the like for others, though journeying by widely sundered tracks.