Our road to Rydal lay through Ambleside, which is certainly a very pretty
town, and looks cheerfully in a sunny day. We saw Miss Martineau's
residence, called "The Knoll," standing high up on a hillock, and having
at its foot a Methodist chapel, for which, or whatever place of Christian
worship, this good lady can have no occasion. We stopped a moment in the
street below her house, and deliberated a little whether to call on her;
but concluded we would not.
After leaving Ambleside, the road winds in and out among the hills, and
soon brings us to a sheet (or napkin, rather than a sheet) of water,
which the driver tells us is Rydal Lake! We had already heard that it
was but three quarters of a mile long, and one quarter broad; still, it
being an idea of considerable size in our minds, we had inevitably drawn
its ideal, physical proportions on a somewhat corresponding scale. It
certainly did look very small; and I said, in my American scorn, that I
could carry it away easily in a porringer; for it is nothing more than a
grass-bordered pool among the surrounding hills which ascend directly
from its margin; so that one might fancy it, not, a permanent body of
water, but a rather extensive accumulation of recent rain. Moreover, it
was rippled with a breeze, and so, as I remember it, though the sun
shone, it looked dull and sulky, like a child out of humor. Now, the
best thing these small ponds can do is to keep perfectly calm and smooth,
and not attempt to show off any airs of their own, but content themselves
with serving as a mirror for whatever of beautiful or picturesque there
may be in the scenery around them.
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