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Dreamthorp A Book of Essays Written in the Country By: Alexander Smith (1830-1867) |
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DREAMTHORP A Book of Essays Written in the Country by ALEXANDER SMITH London
George Routledge & Sons, Limited
New York: E. P. Dutton & Co.
First Edition (in this series), July 1905
Reprinted November, 1907
Reprinted April, 1912
Contents
DREAMTHORP
ON THE WRITING OF ESSAYS
OF DEATH AND THE FEAR OF DYING
WILLIAM DUNBAR
A LARK'S FLIGHT
CHRISTMAS
MEN OF LETTERS
ON THE IMPORTANCE OF A MAN TO HIMSELF
A SHELF IN MY BOOKCASE
GEOFFREY CHAUCER
BOOKS AND GARDENS
ON VAGABONDS
DREAMTHORP It matters not to relate how or when I became a denizen of Dreamthorp;
it will be sufficient to say that I am not a born native, but that I
came to reside in it a good while ago now. The several towns and
villages in which, in my time, I have pitched a tent did not please,
for one obscure reason or another; this one was too large, t'other too
small; but when, on a summer evening about the hour of eight, I first
beheld Dreamthorp, with its westward looking windows painted by sunset,
its children playing in the single straggling street, the mothers
knitting at the open doors, the fathers standing about in long white
blouses, chatting or smoking; the great tower of the ruined castle
rising high into the rosy air, with a whole troop of swallows by
distance made as small as gnats skimming about its rents and
fissures; when I first beheld all this, I felt instinctively that my
knapsack might be taken off my shoulders, that my tired feet might
wander no more, that at last, on the planet, I had found a home. From
that evening I have dwelt here, and the only journey I am like now to
make, is the very inconsiderable one, so far at least as distance is
concerned, from the house in which I live to the graveyard beside the
ruined castle. There, with the former inhabitants of the place, I
trust to sleep quietly enough, and nature will draw over our heads her
coverlet of green sod, and tenderly tuck us in, as a mother her
sleeping ones, so that no sound from the world shall ever reach us, and
no sorrow trouble us any more. The village stands far inland; and the streams that trot through the
soft green valleys all about have as little knowledge of the sea as the
three years' child of the storms and passions of manhood. The
surrounding country is smooth and green, full of undulations; and
pleasant country roads strike through it in every direction, bound for
distant towns and villages, yet in no hurry to reach them. On these
roads the lark in summer is continually heard; nests are plentiful in
the hedges and dry ditches; and on the grassy banks, and at the feet of
the bowed dikes, the blue eyed speedwell smiles its benison on the
passing wayfarer. On these roads you may walk for a year and encounter
nothing more remarkable than the country cart, troops of tawny children
from the woods, laden with primroses, and at long intervals for people
in this district live to a ripe age a black funeral creeping in from
some remote hamlet; and to this last the people reverently doff their
hats and stand aside. Death does not walk about here often, but when
he does, he receives as much respect as the squire himself. Everything
round one is unhurried, quiet, moss grown, and orderly. Season follows
in the track of season, and one year can hardly be distinguished from
another. Time should be measured here by the silent dial, rather than
by the ticking clock, or by the chimes of the church. Dreamthorp can
boast of a respectable antiquity, and in it the trade of the builder is
unknown. Ever since I remember, not a single stone has been laid on
the top of another. The castle, inhabited now by jackdaws and
starlings, is old; the chapel which adjoins it is older still; and the
lake behind both, and in which their shadows sleep, is, I suppose, as
old as Adam. A fountain in the market place, all mouths and faces and
curious arabesques, as dry, however, as the castle moat, has a
tradition connected with it; and a great noble riding through the
street one day several hundred years ago, was shot from a window by a
man whom he had injured... Continue reading book >>
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Essay/Short nonfiction |
Literature |
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