ABSTRACT
[E]verything around had been there from prehistoric times as unaltered as the stars over head [giving] ballast to the mind adrift on change … The great inviolate place had an ancient permanence … With the exception of an aged highway, and a still more aged barrow … themselves almost crystallised to natural pr oducts by long continuance – even Egdon’s trifling irr egularities were not caused by pickaxe, plough, or spade, but remained as the very finger-touches of the last geological change.
