He was not so very different from us after all, that old Roman, we are both Man the Destroyer, for we scar the landscape with cuttings for our fire-carriages — not half so picturesque as the war-chariots of our ancestors doubtless! — and  insult the blue vault of the sky with networks of telegraph lines and, crowning injury, the dastardly outrage of advertising  posters. But, thank Heavens! Z’s soap does not yet flaunt its merits in footlong letters from Beacon Hill, and the elves may dance in the fairy rings undismayed by sight of a glaring  announcement that they should take A’s pills. If any doubt  that there be elves let them go peep into a fold of the Downs  below the training-ground where Porter’s horses have their  daily gallop, and mark how the floor of the tiny vale has a  mosaic of rings as regular as though planned out with rule and  compass for fairies to race and dance in; then ask the old  shepherd by the sheep-fold on the down beyond. He will stay night after night with his dog and black-faced sheep amid  the illimitable solitudes of these hilltops, with no light but the  cold glimmer from the stars, yet not for a fortune would he  spend an hour of darkness alone in his red-tiled cottage a mile  off down the vale! But there is always some light under the  free heavens, and there is lightning every night but on Old Christmas Eve when the cattle – who have not yet learnt to  reckon new style — still kneel down. Much more he can, an  he will, which is to say the least exceeding doubtful, tell you,  and of his own knowledge and experience relate as much about  witches and fairy folk as you might hear at a twelvemonth  of meetings in Albemarle Street ! Read and Connor, Highways and byways in Hampshire (1908)