Editor's Introduction xxiii 



whole, whose lines now shooting upward, now falling 

 off into the blue air with the continually changing beauty 

 of the green earth beneath, produce, not symmetry in- 

 deed, but the higher harmony elsewhere proper to Na- 

 ture's work alone. The first glance at your feet rests on a 

 broad, simple carpet of turf around which a softly wind- 

 ing gravel walk leads to the entrance and exit of the gi- 

 gantic edifice. Look backward and your eye rests on the 

 two black towers of which the oldest, called Guy's Tower, 

 rears its head aloft in solitary threatening majesty high 

 above all the surrounding foliage, and looks as if cast in 

 one mass of solid iron ; the other built by Beauchamp is 

 half hidden by a pine and chestnut, the noble growth 

 of centuries. Broad-leaved ivy and vines climb along the 

 walls, here twining around the tower, there shooting to 

 its very summit. On your left lies the inhabited part 

 of the Castle and the chapel ornamented with many 

 lofty windows of various size and form, while the oppo- 

 site side of the vast quadrangle, almost entirely with- 

 out windows, presents only a mighty mass of embattled 

 stone, broken by a few larches of colossal height, and 

 huge arbutuses which have grown to a surprising size 

 in the shelter they have long enjoyed. But the sublim- 

 est spectacle yet awaits you. On the fourth side, the 

 ground, which has sunk into a low, bushy basin form- 

 ing the court, and with the buildings also descending for 

 a considerable space, rises again in the form of a steep, 

 conical hill along the sides of which climbs the rugged 

 walls of the castle. This hill and the keep which crowns 

 it are thickly overgrown at the top with underwood, 

 which only creeps round the foot of the tower and walls. 

 Behind it, however, rise gigantic venerable trees tower- 

 ing above all the rocklike structure. Their bare stems 

 seem to float in midair, while at the very summit of 

 the building rises a daring bridge, set, as it were, on 

 either side with trees, and as the clouds drift across the 

 blue sky, the broadest, most brilliant masses of light 



