Gaston de Blondeville, vol. 1 of 4 : $b or the court of Henry III. keeping festival in Ardenne, a romance. St. Alban's abbey, a metrical tale; with some poetical piecesRadcliffe, Ann Ward
History
Gaston de Blondeville, vol. 1 of 4 : $b or the court of Henry III. keeping festival in Ardenne, a romance. St. Alban's abbey, a metrical tale; with some poetical pieces
Radcliffe, Ann Ward
Gothic fiction; Great Britain -- History -- Henry III, 1216-1272 -- Fiction; Historical fiction
“Afternoon.—Walked towards Shakspeare’s Cliff; the fleet still in view.
Looked down from the edge of the cliffs on the fine red gravel margin of
the sea. Many vessels on the horizon and in mid-channel. The French
coast, white and high, and clear in the evening gleam. Evening upon the
sea becoming melancholy, silent and pale. A leaden-coloured vapour
rising upon the horizon, without confounding the line of separation; the
ocean whiter, till the last deep twilight falls, when all is one
gradual, inseparable, undistinguishable, grey.
“September 4.—Morning fine, calm, but become slightly cloudy. Walked to
the topmost point of Shakspeare’s Cliff, which appears a huge face of
chalk over the sea. The way through fields; the path constantly rising,
and leading near the edge of the cliffs; leaned sometimes over the
railing, and looked down the precipices and on the blue sea; little
boats and a sloop below. Coast of France visible; though always most
clearly seen about sunset, when the western rays strike horizontally
upon it, and light up all its features. Proceeding to the point of the
cliff, had no longer the protection of a railing; bushes of hawthorn,
mossed with yellow, alone fence the precipice. Putting our hands on the
ground, we peeped over, ledge below ledge, abrupt down. Many of the
ledges hung with plants and bushes. On the east, Dover—the bay—the
castle—cliffs beyond—the boundless sea. In front, France, (Calais not
visible,) a long tract sinking away to the West, and leaving a wider
sea. Westward, charming view towards Beachy Head, the high and farthest
promontory; black points of land, or rather low promontories, running
out, one beyond another, into the sea; hills retiring to some margin,
wild, heathy and broken; then the coast makes a fine sweep; and, after
forming a vast bay, stretches out in the long, low point of land, called
Dungeness, on which stands a light-house. Within this fine bay,
Folkstone was visible, with Sandgate castle and village on the margin;
then Hythe, a little more removed and higher; then an old castle, higher
still and further from the shore; Romney, with its long marshes, beyond;
and far beyond all, the high lands of Beachy Head, so eminent and bold,
as scarcely to be known for a continuation of the same coast. The cliffs
decline towards Folkstone, and there are none beyond, on this side of
Beachy Head; but at some distance, from the shore, rise broken and wild,
though small hills. The best circumstances in the view are, first, the
fine dark points and then the noble sweep of the coast, the dark levels
of the marshes contrasting with the blue sea they skirt. Crows took wing
for their nests in the cliffs below us. Thought of “the midway air;” no
sea-fowl. The white surf beating far along the curving margin below to
where other chalky points uprear themselves. Within land, the hills are
brown and bleak and broken. The castle hills, on the land side, scarred
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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