A Leisurely Tour in England

A Leisurely Tour in England

Stevenson once took a journey with a donkey, which animal gave him much trouble. I took my journey in a reliable little motor-car that happily gave me none. Though I went by car I went leisurely, stopping often by the way, for full well I realise the reward of loitering, and, as all wise wanderers can testify, there is such a thing as profitably loitering, and a joy in it. Had they been of his day Carlyle would probably have declared that motor-cars "are mostly employed for the transport of fools best left at home," at least he said so of railways. With a car, however, you can control the pace, and can stop at your pleasure; it is an excellent servant, though in truth a bad master. I went "in search of the picturesque" and I found it, also of the unfamiliar in a familiar land. If I came to an interesting place, or happened upon[Pg viii] some curious character steeped in the traditions of the countryside, whose speech was perchance racy of the soil, the matter of time did not trouble me. Why should it? The day was mine and the promise of it, my object was not to cover so many miles and make them meaningless by undue haste, but to linger long enough in pleasant places, the more remote the more to my mind, so that they could make their appeal to me and I could gather something of the spirit of thema something beyond what the eye merely sees. "Wise men," says Kingsley, "go a-fishing"; they also go a-travelling, and I can imagine no touring groundI write this having wandered far and wide in foreign landsmore delightful than rural England, away from the ugliness of modern cities and all that has to do with them. By not confining myself to the high-road but by seeking the byway and the lane I got right into the heart of the real, unspoilt country, where pleasant pastoral scenery, time-honoured homes, quiet farmsteads, old coaching inns (I hope I have not talked too much of them), peaceful villages, each with their ancient churches, quaint little market-towns picturesquely unprogressive, and here and there a ruined abbey or crumbling[Pg ix] castle, grey with years, gladden the eye of the pilgrim. Places and scenes to be remembered. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 45712
Author: Hissey, James John
Release Date: May 21, 2014
Format: eBook
Language: English