Marden Fee

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If from a great height we look down on the scene of my story, we shall see the convex surface of the earth as a small shining disk, one of a myriad spinning coins tossed into space by the unknown minter; and, if our vision serve us, we shall see, moving on that disk, events that are now ages old. So we may begin in however remote a past, and, descending stage by stage, make our own terms with time, the line of our vertical downward flight being the instrument with which, at our pleasure, we may accelerate or retard its motion. Somewhere upon the face of that small world is England; somewhere on England is the South Downland; and in the heart of that country—microcosm of a microcosm—lies the little patch of territory, as yet undefined, that is one day to be known as Marden Fee. It is a small enough space, but the world itself is no bigger in meaning; for meaning is of the heart, and all that the heart knows and suffers can be read, if it can be read at all, as plainly in this hamlet as in the universe at large: more plainly indeed, for the less contains the greater, and here is an horizon that curves comfortably into the eye.

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