Uppingham by the Sea: A Narrative of the Year at BorthSkrine, John Huntley
History
Uppingham by the Sea: A Narrative of the Year at Borth
Skrine, John Huntley
Uppingham School
DR. CHILDS referred to the pleasure experienced in doing a kindly action,
and afterwards humorously added that at one time he thought of setting up
in practice at Borth, but finding the place so healthy he had given up
the idea. (Laughter and cheers.) He should, however, know where to send
his convalescent patients in future. He should recommend them to take
the first train, and spend a week on the sands at Borth, with an
occasional dip in the Neptune Baths. (Loud laughter and cheers.) Three
cheers were given for the ladies of Uppingham School, and the assembly
separated after singing the National Anthem.
HOW WE CAME BACK TO UPPINGHAM.
(_From the_ SCHOOL MAGAZINE.)
(_Signifer, statue signum, hic manebimus optime_.)
Who has not known the moment when, as he looked on some familiar
landscape, its homely features and sober colouring have suddenly, under
some chance inspiration of the changing sky, become alive with an
unexpected beauty: its unambitious hills take on them the dignity of
mountains, its woods and streams swell and broaden with a majesty not
their own. Though, perhaps, it is their own, if Nature, like Man, is
most herself when seen in her best self; if her brightest moments are her
truest.
Shall we be thought fanciful if we confess that we felt something of this
same kind when, returning from a year-long exile, in the last gleams of a
bright May evening we turned the corner of the High Street of Uppingham,
and came face to face with our welcome. The old street, seen again at
last after so many months of banishment, the same and not the same; the
old, homely street--forgive us, walls and roofs of Uppingham, and forgive
us, you who tenant them, if sometimes perhaps to some of us, as our eyes
swept the grand range of Welsh mountain-tops, or travelled out over
limitless sea distances, there would rise forbidden feelings of
reluctance to exchange these fair things for the bounded views and less
unstinted beauties of our midland home: forgive us, as you may the more
readily because these thoughts, if any such lingered, were charmed away
on the instant by the sight of the real Uppingham. There lay the path to
our home, an avenue of triumphal arches soaring on pillars of greenery,
plumed with sheaves of banners, and enscrolled with such words as those
to whom they spoke will know how to read and remember. Our eyes could
follow through arch after arch the reaches of the gently-winding street,
alive from end to end with waving flags, green boughs, and fanciful
devices, till the quiet golden light in the western sky closed the vista,
and glorified with such a touch of its own mellow splendour the ranges of
brown gables and their floating banners, that for a moment we half
dreamed ourselves spectators of an historic pageant in some "dim, rich
city" of old-world renown. Only for a moment, though; for when we drop
our eyes to the street below us, those are our own townsfolk,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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