"Immortal glory,"
is not that a beautiful thing, in the Shakespeare Clubs and
Literary Gazettes of our improved Epoch?--I did not leave London,
except for fourteen days in August, to a fine and high old Lady-
friend's in Kent; where, riding about the woods and by the sea-
beaches and chalk cliffs, in utter silence, I felt sadder than
ever, though a little less _miserably_ so, than in the intrusive
babblements of London, which I could not quite lock out of doors.
We read, at first, Tennyson's _Idyls,_ with profound recognition
of the finely elaborated execution, and also of the inward
perfection of _vacancy,_--and, to say truth, with considerable
impatience at being treated so very like infants, though the
lollipops were so superlative. We gladly changed for one
Emerson's _English Traits;_ and read that, with increasing and
ever increasing satisfaction every evening; blessing Heaven that
there were still Books for grown-up people too! That truly is a
Book all full of thoughts like winged arrows (thanks to the
Bowyer from us both):--my Lady-friend's name is Miss Davenport
Bromley; it was at Wooton, in her Grandfather's House, in
Staffordshire, that Rousseau took shelter in 1760; and one
hundred and six years later she was reading Emerson to me with a
recognition that would have pleased the man, had he seen it.
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