I should like now to transport the reader to a wholly different scene,
that we may consider together some of the more obvious features in the
landscapes of the south coast of England. At the western end of the
Isle of Wight, a long ridge of chalk-down, which stretches completely
across the island, runs out to sea, and terminates in the well-known
white pinnacles of the Needles. From the highest part of the ridge,
when the air is clear, the eye ranges southward over a vast expanse
of open sea. To the west and north the breadth of water is bounded by
the blue hills of Dorsetshire, the white cliffs of Swanage Bay, and
then the long low brown heights which are crowned with the spires of
Bournemouth and Christchurch. Eastward we note how the ridge on which
we stand sinks down into the hollow of Freshwater Gap, but rises again
on the farther side, and then striking inland for some miles, sweeps
round to form the heights of St. Catharine's, nearly 800 feet high,
whence it descends once more in white cliffs to the sea.
On a summer noon, when a fresh westerly breeze roughens the sea into
deepest azure, and keeps a continual murmur of plashing waves at the
foot of the cliffs, few pieces of English coast scenery offer more
attractions than this. From the verge of the short green sward of the
down, the chalk plunges in a sheer precipice of dazzling whiteness,
that contrasts well with the mingled blue and emerald-green of the sea
below. Projecting massive buttresses, that catch the full blaze of
sunlight, throw into delicate violet shadow the recesses and alcoves
into which the face of chalk has been worn. On the great ocean highway
in front, vessels of every size and rig sail past on their outward or
homeward voyage. Though our perch above the precipice is solitary,
we yet feel within sight and touch of the living world. Across the
bay we mark the smoke of distant villages and towns, and the fields
and woodlands that separate the scattered hamlets. Just below, at the
northern foot of the ridge, sheltered and concealed among its woods,
lies that home so dear to lovers of English literature, where--
'Groves of pine on either hand,
To break the blast of winter, stand,
And further on, the hoary channel
Tumbles a breaker on chalk and sand.'
Nor are memorials of the past wanting to throw over the scene the
priceless charm of old memory and tradition. The down is roughened here
and there with 'the grassy barrows of the happier dead.' The steeples
and towers of the country churches dotted over the landscape, mark
still, as they have done for centuries, the heart of each parish and
its quiet graveyard. It is a typically English scene, full of that
hallowed, historic interest, and of that subdued, unobtrusive beauty,
where the lineaments of nature are everywhere more or less concealed by
the labours of man, which constitute so chief a source of pleasure in
the landscapes of England.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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