TO MY TWELVE NEPHEWS,
WILLIAM, FRANCIS, STEPHEN, PHILIP, LEONARD,
GODFREY, AND DAVID SMITH;
REGINALD, NICHOLAS, AND IVOR GATTY;
ALEXANDER, AND CHARLES SCOTT GATTY.
J.H.E.
WE AND THE WORLD.
CHAPTER I.
“All these common features of English landscape evince a calm and settled security, and hereditary transmission of home-bred virtues and local attachments, that speak deeply and touchingly for the moral character of the nation.”—Washington Irving’s Sketch Book.