XXIV 



WOULD you view fair Levens aright? you must visit 

 it in earliest spring, for that is the season in which to 

 A North rea ^ se i ts peculiar charm. Summer, hi sooth, 

 country is sweet there ; nowhere does June sunlight 

 HaU fall on fairer prospect of sloping lawn, grey 

 crag, deep-bosomed wood, and bending river ; but then 

 every English park is enchanted ground in summer. 

 In autumn this northern vale is rich with ripening 

 grain, stretching away to the silvery limestone bluff of 

 Whitbarrow, and round it to the blue loops and crests 

 of the Cumberland range. But westland autumns are 

 of precarious mood ; it is depressing to gaze on a sloppy 

 harvest through streaming panes. In wan winter 

 twilight, when lights beckon early across the frore, 

 the old hall is almost too picturesque, suggesting the 

 cheap art of Christmas cards. But though winds of 

 March, sweeping bare the land to prepare it for summer 

 finery, often bring cold more searching than midwinter, 

 there are basking places among the velvety alleys and 

 under the hoary walls of Levens garden where one may 

 forestall the solstice. 



There is a smell of impatient vegetation in the air ; 



