are becoming clearer and brighter as the excitement of overcrowded days
and weeks gradually calms down. I can _be_ in those places where I
passed days and nights, and became habituated to the sight of the
cathedral, or of the Church of the Holy Trinity, at morning, at noon, at
evening, whenever I turned my eyes in its direction. I often close my
eyelids, and startle my household by saying, "Now I am in Salisbury," or
"Now I am in Stratford." It is a blessed thing to be able, in the
twilight of years, to illuminate the soul with such visions. The
Charles, which flows beneath my windows, which I look upon between the
words of the sentence I am now writing, only turning my head as I sit at
my table,--the Charles is hardly more real to me than Shakespeare's
Avon, since I floated on its still waters, or strayed along its banks
and saw the cows reflected in the smooth expanse, their legs upward, as
if they were walking the skies as the flies walk the ceiling. Salisbury
Cathedral stands as substantial in my thought as our own King's Chapel,
since I slumbered by its side, and arose in the morning to find it still
there, and not one of those unsubstantial fabrics built by the architect
of dreams.
On Thursday, the 22d of July, we left Salisbury for Brighton, where we
were to be guests at Arnold House, the residence of our kind host. Here
we passed another delightful week, with everything around us to
contribute to our quiet comfort and happiness. The most thoughtful of
entertainers, a house filled with choice works of art, fine paintings,
and wonderful pottery, pleasant walks and drives, a visitor now and
then, Mr. and Mrs. Goldwin Smith among the number, rest and peace in a
magnificent city built for enjoyment,--what more could we have asked to
make our visit memorable? Many watering-places look forlorn and desolate
in the intervals of "the season." This was not the time of Brighton's
influx of visitors, but the city was far from dull. The houses are very
large, and have the grand air, as if meant for princes; the shops are
well supplied; the salt breeze comes in fresh and wholesome, and the
noble esplanade is lively with promenaders and Bath chairs, some of them
occupied by people evidently ill or presumably lame, some, I suspect,
employed by healthy invalids who are too lazy to walk. I took one
myself, drawn by an old man, to see how I liked it, and found it very
convenient, but I was tempted to ask him to change places and let me
drag him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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