Page:Forget Me Not (1826).djvu/40

20 BOLTON ABBEY.

race, the poor animals returned, wearied and dispirited, to the place from which they had commenced their career. Every now and then, we could discern small companies of reapers busy with the early harvest; even their work seemed to go listlessly on. In general the wheat remained uncut: while its rich golden waves, spreading in every direction over the face of the country, gave a pleasing variety to the landscape. “It is wonderful,” I observed to De la Roche, “ that you, who have been accustomed to all the magnificence and luxuriance of a southern climate, can still contemplate with pleasure the comparatively homely scene before us: I should always fear one of the effects of travelling would be, to render me dissatisfied with my own barren country.” “ Far otherwise,” he replied: “ the lofty mountain and the foaming cataract strike us at first with pleasure, with admiration, and with awe; the mind soars, as it were, above itself: but the higher its flight the sooner it becomes fatigued, and we gladly turn from scenes of lofty grandeur to the more smiling beauties of the plain. Besides all this, there is a magic in the name of home and country, which he only who has quitted them for a time can fully know. In a foreign land, we wander amidst the charms of nature, lonely, unconnected beings: separated from our kindred and our friends, we have none to sympathise in our feelings; we are, as it were, alone in