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The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft
·
George Gissing
70
II.
I
have
been
spending
a
week
in
Somerset.
The
right
June
weather
put
me
in
the
mind
for
rambling,
and
my
thoughts
turned
to
the
Severn
Sea.
I
went
to
Glastonbury
and
Wells,
and
on
to
Cheddar,
and
so
to
the
shore
of
the
Channel
at
Clevedon,
remembering
my
holiday
of
fifteen
years
ago,
and
too
often
losing
myself
in
a
contrast
of
the
man
I
was
then
and
what
I
am
now.
Beautiful
beyond
all
words
of
description
that
nook
of
oldest
England;
but
that
I
feared
the
moist
and
misty
winter
climate,
I
should
have
chosen
some
spot
below
the
Mendips
for
my
home
and
resting-place.
Unspeakable
the
charm
to
my
ear
of
those
old
names;
exquisite
the
quiet
of
those
little
towns,
lost
amid
tilth
and
pasture,
untouched
as
yet
by
the
fury
of
modern
life,
their
ancient
sanctuaries
guarded,
as
it
were,
by
noble
trees
and
hedges
overrun
with
flowers.
In
all
England
there
is
no
sweeter
and
more
varied
prospect
than
that
from
the
hill
of
the
Holy
Thorn
at
Glastonbury;
in
all
England
there
is
no
lovelier
musing
place
than
the
leafy
walk
beside
the
Palace
Moat
at
Wells.
As
I
think
of
the
golden
hours
I
spent
there,
a
passion
to
which
I
can
give
no
name
takes
hold
upon
me;
my
heart
trembles
with
an
indefinable
ecstasy.
There
was
a
time
of
my
life
when
I
was
consumed
with
a
desire
for
foreign
travel;
an
impatience
of
everything
familiar
fretted
me
through
all
the
changing
year.
If
I
had
not
at
length
found
the
opportunity
to
escape,
if
I
had
not
seen
the
landscapes
for
which
my
soul
longed,
I
think
I
must
have
moped
to
death.
Few
men,
assuredly,
have
enjoyed
such
wanderings
more
than
I,
and
few
men
revive
them
in
memory
with
a
richer
delight
or
deeper
longing.
But--whatever
temptation
comes
to
me
in
mellow
autumn,
when
I
think
of
the
grape
and
of
the
olive--I
do
not
believe
I
shall
ever
again
cross
the
sea.
What
remains
to
me
of
life
and
of
energy
is
far
too
little
for
the
enjoyment
of
all
I
know,
and
all
I
wish
to
know,
of
this
dear
island.
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