Impressions of England, Or, Sketches of English Scenery and Society

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1856. Excerpt: ... IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. CHAPTER I. First and Second Thoughts--A Warwickshire Welcome. About noon, one hazy April day, I found myself approaching the British coast, and was informed by the Captain of our gallant steamer, that in a few minutes we should gain a glimpse of the mountains of Wales. Instead of rushing to the upper-deck, I found myself forced by a strange impulse to retire to my state-room. For nearly thirty years had my imagination been fed with tales of the noble island over the sea; and for no small portion of that period, its history and its institutions had been a favorite subject of study. To exchange, forever, the England of my fancy for the matter-of-fact England of the nineteenth century, was something to which I was now almost afraid to consent. For a moment I gave way to misgivings; collected and reviewed the conceptions of childhood; and then betook myself, solemnly, to the reality of seeing, with my own eyes, the land of my ancestors, in a spirit of thankfulness for so great a privilege. I went on deck. There was a faint outline of Snowdon in the misty distance; and before long, as the mist dispersed, there, just before us, was the noble brow of Holyhead. It reminded me of the massive promontory opposite Breakneck, as we descend the Hudson, towards West Point: but the thought that it was another land, and an old as well as an ancestral one, strangely mingled with my comparative memories of home. There is something like dying and waking to life again, in leaving one's home, and committing one's self to such a symbol of Eternity as the Ocean, and then, after long days and nights, beholding the reality of things unknown before, and entering upon new scenes, with a sense of immense separation from one's former self. Oppressive thoughts o...