BISHOP'S STORTFORD. 137 It is eight miles from Dunmow to the Bishop's Stortford Station, on the Cambridge line, and thus the excursionist can pleasantly vary his return route to town. Before parting company with the reader, we would fain once more impress upon him the advantages of reducing the hints for excursions given in the foregoing pages to the pleasant proofs of practical experience. We firmly believe that nothing can give a more vigorous spur to the flagged and jaded intellect-nothing can administer a more genuine and invigorative impulse to our thoughts and fancies, than the occasional flight from the busy scenes of commerce to the green recesses of our surrounding woodlands, where we may exchange the dizzy hum of traffic for peaceful meditation in those sylvan solitudes that are to be found amid the haunts of nature. Quick trains and cheap fares have done wonders in bringing the hearts of luckless Londoners into communion with the charms of the country, and what we have endeavoured to show is, that if the long purses and long journeys commensurate therewith are not within the power of the million to attain, we have yet a hundred delightful resorts within the compass of a few shillings and a few hours. If we cannot accomplish a trip to the Continent, we can manage a jaunt to Leith Hill; if we fail to reach the lakes, or find the Highlands beyond our reach, we can yet agreeably content ourselves with an afternoon in Richmond Park or a day in Windsor Forest. L |