MELLOW ENGLAND 



T WILL say at the outset, as I believe some one else 

 ■*■ has said on a like occasion, that in this narrative I 

 shall probably describe myself more than the objects I 

 look upon. The facts and particulars of the case have 

 already been set down in the guide books and in innu- 

 merable books of travel. I shall only attempt to give 

 an account of the pleasure and satisfaction I had in 

 coming face to face with things in the mother country, 

 seeing them 'as I did with kindred and sympathizing 

 eyes. 



The ocean was a dread fascination to me — a world 

 whose dominion I had never entered, but I proved to 

 be such a wretched sailor that I am obliged to confess, 

 Hibernian-fashion, that the happiest moment I spent 

 upon the sea was when I set my foot upon the land. 



It is a wide and fearful gulf that separates the tw r o 

 worlds. The landsman can know little of the wildness, 

 savageness, and merciiessness of nature till he has been 

 upon the sea. It is as if he had taken a leap off into 

 the interstellar spaces. In voyaging to Mars or Jupiter 

 he might cross such a desert — might confront such 

 awful purity and coldness. An astronomic solitariness 



