At, two or three points there were stone barns, which
are here built with great solidity. At one place there was a painted
board, announcing that a field of five acres was to be sold, and
referring those desirous of purchasing to a solicitor in London. The
lake country is but a London suburb. Nevertheless, the walk was lonely
and lovely; the copses and the broad hillside, the glimpses of the lake,
the great misty company of pikes and fells, beguiled me into a sense of
something like solitude; and the bleating of the sheep, remote and near,
had a like tendency. Gaining the summit of the hill, I had the best view
of Windermere which I have yet attained,--the best, I should think, that
can be had, though, being towards the south, it brings the softer instead
of the more striking features of the landscape into view. But it shows
nearly the whole extent of the lake, all the way from Lowwood, beyond
Newby Bridge, and I think there can hardly be anything more beautiful in
the world. The water was like a strip and gleam of sky, fitly set among
lovely slopes of earth. It was no broader than many a river, and yet you
saw at once that it could be no river, its outline being so different
from that of a running stream, not straight nor winding, but stretching
to one side or the other, as the shores made room for it.
This morning it is raining, and we are not very comfortable nor
contented, being all confined to our little parlor, which has a broken
window, against which I have pinned The Times to keep out the chill damp
air.
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