Algernon Blackwood

“ The Weald, the oak woods, the wide, sea-tasting skies of Sussex pour through every page; the Downs hold the chapters in their hollows. Wind carries the reader along. The vitality of this rushing, stimulating book is equal to the sincerity that produced it. You feel the author has a passionate sense of the beauty of this old county where he lives himself. His illustrations reveal it too. As you read it you feel you walk the Downs by his side and hear his cantering mind reveal them to you: “There, a day’s march away to the south, stood the rank of the Downs. ”

“ And the old Sussex songs ring through every chapter, given with the music for all to echo who have voices (“I will sing Gol-ier,” that delightful, ancient song of Sussex) , and other songs as well, not so easily classified. Mr. Belloc has put a bit of his heart, certainly of his early love, into this modest two-shilling volume. His love of battle too⁠—and battles. All the Sussex battles live again as you read about them howling and clashing among the undulating wood-lands and over the grand old Downs of Sussex. ”

“ They are, indeed, a wise and jolly company, these four men who travel together the roads and woods of Sussex, and interpret the moods of this fine county through their own. It is, at the same time, a journey across the Map of Life, for though it only lasts four days, these four days seem to correspond to the four seasons of the year, in another sense to childhood, youth, maturity and old age. And the men are types⁠—old Grizzlebeard, the ripe philosopher, a Poet, a Sailor and “Myself.” “Myself” starts alone, and picks the others up along the route ”