Old associations are sure to be fragrant herbs in English
nostrils: we pull them up as weeds.
I remember such a path, the access to which is from Lovers' Grove, a
range of tall old oaks and elms on a high hill-top, whence there is a
view of Warwick Castle, and a wide extent of landscape, beautiful,
though bedimmed with English mist. This particular foot-path, however,
is not a remarkably good specimen of its kind, since it leads into no
hollows and seclusions, and soon terminates in a high-road. It connects
Leamington by a short cut with the small neighboring village of
Lillington, a place which impresses an American observer with its many
points of contrast to the rural aspects of his own country. The village
consists chiefly of one row of contiguous dwellings, separated only by
party-walls, but ill-matched among themselves, being of different
heights, and apparently of various ages, though all are of an antiquity
which we should call venerable. Some of the windows are leaden-framed
lattices, opening on hinges. These houses are mostly built of gray
stone; but others, in the same range, are of brick, and one or two are
in a very old fashion,--Elizabethan, or still older,--having a ponderous
framework of oak, painted black, and filled in with plastered stone or
bricks.
Pages:
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206