174 



AN OCTOBER ABROAD, 



scape, no sharp and violent contrasts, no brilliant and 

 striking tints in the foliage. A soft, pale yellow is all 

 one sees in the way of tints along the borders of the 

 autumn woods. English apples (very small and in- 

 ferior, by the way) are not so highly colored as ours. 

 The blackberries, just ripening in October, are less 

 pungent and acid ; and the garden vegetables, such as 

 cabbage, celery, cauliflower, beet, and other root crops, 

 are less rank and fibrous ; and I am very sure that the 

 meats also are tenderer and sweeter. There can be no 

 doubt about the superiority of the mutton ; and the ten- 

 der and succulent grass, and the moist and agreeable 

 climate, must tell upon the beef also. 



English coal is all soft coal, and the stone is soft 

 stone. The foundations of the hills are chalk instead 

 of granite. The stone with which most of the old 

 churches and cathedrals are built would not endure in 

 our climate half a century ; but in Britain the tooth of 

 Time is much blunter, and the hunger of the old man 

 less ravenous, and the ancient architecture stands half 

 a millennium, or until it is slowly worn away by the 

 gentle attrition of the wind and rain. 



At Chester, the old Roman wall that surrounds the 

 town, built in the first century and repaired in the 

 ninth, is still standing without a break or a swerve, 

 though in some places the outer face of the wall is 

 worn through. The cathedral, and St. John's church, 

 in the same town, present to the beholder outlines as 

 jagged and broken as rocks and cliffs ; and yet it is 



