Love And Kindness Are The Home Of All Souls, And Show Us What
Heaven Must Be.
The thing that impressed me most was the dim light of the English
day, the soft, undefined shadows, compared
With our brilliant
sunshine and sharply defined shade - then the coloring of the houses,
the streets, the ground, of every thing; no bright colors, all
sober, some very dark, - the idea of age, gravity, and stability.
Nobody seems in a hurry. Our country seems so young and vehement;
this so grave and collected!
Now I will tell you something about my visit to my dear friend
Harriet Martineau, whose beautiful little books, "Feats on the
Fiord," "The Crofton Boys," and the others, you love so much to
read. She lives at Ambleside, in what is called the Lake Country.
Ambleside is a beautiful country town in the valley of the Rotha,
and not far from Lake Windermere. Around the town rise high hills,
which perhaps may be called mountains. These mountains are not, like
many of ours, clothed to the summit with thick wild forests, but
have fewer trees, and are often bare at the summit. The mixture of
gray rock and green grass forms such a beautiful coloring over their
graceful and sometimes grotesque outline that you would not have
them other than they are.
The Ambleside houses are of dark-gray stone, and almost all of them
have ivy and flowers about them. One small house, the oldest in the
village, was several hundred years old; and out of all the crevices
between the stones hung harebells and other wild flowers; one side
of it and much of the roof were covered with ivy. This house was
only about ten feet square, and it looked to me like a great rustic
flower pot.
I should like some time to read you a description of this lovely
place, written by Miss Martineau herself. Then you will almost hear
the murmuring sound of the Brathay and the Rotha, and breathe the
perfume of the wild heather, and catch the freshness of the morning
breeze, as she offers you these mountain luxuries in her glowing
words.
Miss Martineau lives a little out of the village. You drive up to
the house through a shrubbery of laurels, and roses, and fuschias,
and other plants, - young trees and flowers, - to the beautiful little
porch, covered with honeysuckles and creeping plants. The back of
the house is turned to the road, and the front looks out over the
loveliest green meadows, to the grand, quiet hills, sometimes clear
and sharp in their outline against the blue sky, and at others
wreathed with mist; and one might sit for hours at the large bay
window in the parlor, watching these changes, and asking no other
enjoyment.
It was also a great pleasure to witness the true and happy life of
my friend. I saw there the highest ideas of duty, usefulness, and
benevolence carried into daily practice. Miss Martineau took us one
morning to see the poet Wordsworth.
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