And so on the next morning the first place I went to see was The Wakes,
the house where this great and dear lover of England of my heart lived,
dying there in 1793, to lie in his own churchyard, his grave marked by
a simple headstone bearing his initials "G.W." and the date. In the
church is a tablet to him and his brother Benjamin, who has also placed
there in memory of him the seventeenth century German triptych over
the altar. But he needs no memorial from our hands; all he loved,
Selborne itself in all its beauty, the exquisite country round it, the
hills, the valleys, the woods and the streams are his monument, the
very birds in their songs remind us of him, and there is not a walk
that is not the lovelier because he has passed by. Do you climb up
through the Hanger and admire the beeches there? It is he who has told
us what to expect, loving the beech like a father, "the most lovely of
all forest trees whether we consider its smooth rind or bark, its
glossy foliage or graceful pendulous boughs." Do you linger in the
Plestor? It is he who tells you of the old oak that stood there, and
was blown down in 1703 "to the infinite regret of the inhabitants and
the vicar who bestowed several pounds in setting it in its place again;
but all this care could not avail; the tree sprouted for a time then
withered and died.
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