But anything connected with Selborne interested him, and he wrote of and studied its “antiquities” as well as its “natural history.”  Nor were these antiquities so negligible as one might think.  In his day the church was still an interesting building, and he has left us an interesting account of it.  But he does not forget to tell us, too, of the Augustinian Priory of Selborne, that was founded in 1233 and stood to the east of the village, the way to it lying through his beloved Long Lythe, and the site of which is now occupied by Priory Farm, a few ruins remaining.  Nothing, indeed, that concerned his beloved village was to him ungrateful.  It is, without doubt, this careful love of his for the things that were his own, at his door, common things if you will, common only in England of my heart, that has endeared him to innumerable readers, many of whom have never set foot upon our shores and would only not be utter strangers here if they did, because of him.  Such at least is the only explanation I can give of his immortality, his constant appeal to all sorts and conditions of men.

Day by day as I wandered through the lanes and the woods that he had loved with so wonderful and unconscious an affection, in a repose that we have lost and a quietness we can only envy him, I tried to discover, I tried to make clear to myself, what it really is that on a dull evening at home, in a sleepless night in London, or in the long winter evenings anywhere, draws me back again and again to that curious book.  But even there in Selborne the secret was hidden from me.  In truth one might as well inquire of the birds why they delight us, or of the flowers why we love them so; for in some way I cannot understand Gilbert White was gently at one with these and spoke of them sweetly like a lover and a friend having a gift from God by which he makes us partakers of his pleasure.

And so spring drew to a close as I lingered in Selborne, for I could not drag myself away.  And when, at last, I determined to set out, the Feast of St John was already at hand, so that I made haste once more across the hills for Winchester on my way to Old Sarum and Stonehenge, where I would see the sunrise on midsummer morning.