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Untitled Article
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
it for my matin circuit , that I may earn one enjoyment by another , the duty being more delectable than the recompense , which is very virtuous . There is before you from the open glass-door of the house only a small flat space of table-land , ( kitchen-garden , i . e . in part , ) and the rest laid 6 ut according to the established form , in square and oblong beds , with roses and tulips , and
peonys , and a second crop coming of hollyhocks and tiger lilies ; and that at first seems all ; but as your eye travels round the verge and outer margin of the opposite side of the parallelogram , there rise before it certain wavy outlines and blue shadings , faint and cloudy ,, yet having a reality and a distinctness withal , that tell you of a wide though viewless world between . The sensation is a strange mixture of sense and imagination ; a consciousness
of the conjoined presence of the visible and the invisible ; you feel how much there must be more than you see . On the near view the garden is all the world , but the eye is irresistibly drawn to that shadowy distance which is a revelation and a promise of a vast and glorious intermediate prospect . The boundary line is made so distinct by the precipitous descent of the hill . Down it goes , headlong down , thickly covered with wood , graceful as the mantle of imperial Caesar , that it may , like him , ' fall with decency ; ' but so abrupt , that no tree-tops , peering above the path of that natural terrace , give you warning of that verdant ambush below . And yet there it spreads out ; deep , thick , wide , and tangled , rich and populous with all that is musical and beautiful .
And down we go too with a plunge into that abyss of foliage and flowers . Oak , ash , and beech , and birch , and pine are there , and yonder the stately chestnuts by themselves with , their dainty blossoms ; and harebells , and euphorbia , and the wild geranium , and the orchis tribe ; and true to the greenwood still , Robin Hood , scarlet and green , a pleasanter memory than that of being Earl of
Huntingdon ; and better than all , mine own sweet woodriffe ; and they all inweave and inwreathe themselves together , above and below ; shade , light , fragrance , softness , form , colour ; and the hum of insects , and the song of birds ; a bath of sense ; until you seem to be blending and dissolving with them too , into the elemental principles of pure physical delight . And through the
trees there are glimpses of the wide prospect . Up to the higher and clearer ground ; there the eye reels over and through the immensity of the valley . There are the softly swelling hills of Kent , undulating in the gentle and graceful wave which is peculiar to the surface of that county , the true line of beauty ; and there are
the Surrey hills , ( it counterpoise for the perfection of the picture ; and yonder the bolder downs which one knows have ' towers along the steep , ' and overlook the mighty sea beyond ; and all between , though so vast , is yet so soft , and fair , and fertile . There is nothing harsh , nothing obtrusive ; nature has licensed no one object to rise proudly and claim to be the centre of the scene , reducing
Untitled Article
418 Local Logic .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1833, page 418, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2616/page/58/
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