In fact, it was a pretty place; and I felt such "dispositions
to melancholies," as Sir Hugh Evans would have it, that I half
resented Mr. S.'s suggestion that the cars were waiting. However, as
he was engaged to speak at a peace meeting in London, it was agreed he
should leave us there to stroll, while he took the cars. So away he
went; and we, leaning on the old fence, repeated the Elegy, which
certainly applies here as beautifully as language could apply.
What a calm, shady, poetical nature is expressed in these lines! Gray
seems to have been sent into the world for nothing but to be a poem,
like some of those fabulous, shadowy beings which haunted the cool
grottoes on Grecian mountains; creatures that seem to have no
practical vitality--to be only a kind of voice, an echo, heard for a
little, and then lost in silence. He seemed to be in himself a kind of
elegy.
From thence we strolled along, enjoying the beautiful rural scenery.
Having had a kind invitation to visit Labouchere Park that day, which
we were obliged to decline for want of time, we were pleased to
discover that we had two more hours, in which we could easily
accomplish a stroll there.
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