Alfred Austin

Haunts of Ancient Peace Alfred Austin

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1902. Excerpt: ... II We were some two hundred miles from where Lamia had expressed her regret she had not come into the world the daughter of a rural Rector; and I suspect that, in the interval, she had seen more than one haunt of ancient peace in which her sensitive fancy could with contentment have imagined her lot to be cast. It is one of the advantages of our Island, that, though comparatively small and so easily traversed, it contains almost every variety of scenery that delights the eye and engages the heart. The country we were now passing through had nothing in common with that lately seen, except that it also was unmistakably part of England, and wore an air of long-established tranquillity. Hills of no mean elevation, though all of them tolerably easy of ascent, save to the feeble and the aged, rivers rightly designated such since they are never dry, if rarely over-brimming, and frankly open vales with music-making streams wandering irresponsibly through them, define its character. Such marks as human beings have made on it are quiet Cathedral cities, small agricultural townships, prosperouslooking homesteads, and hamlets that seem to have long since reached their final stage of development, and to be well satisfied that their further evolution should be arrested. They are passed through rather than visited by the tourist in search of the obviously picturesque; but at all seasons they furnish a sufficient harvest for the quiet eye. For our mid-day haltingstage we had in view an Abbey, so extensive in its ruins, so noble in its architecture, and so admirable in its position, that it enjoys, it must be owned, if such should be called enjoyment, world-wide notoriety. But, though the holiday season was scarcely quite over, we counted on the comparative absence of vis...