‘The hills are shadows and they flow
From form to form and nothing stands;
They melt like mists, the solid lands,
Like clouds they shape themselves and go.’
He was speaking geologically of the changes wrought by centuries; but here the beautiful green sunlit or cloud-shaded hills do seem every moment to ‘flow from form to form,’ ‘to melt like mists,’ ‘like clouds to shape themselves and go.’”
“You are a dreamer, little Drusa!”
“It does seem like a dream. I should not be the least surprised to wake up and find myself—where?—anywhere at all in my past life! In my little corner of the housekeeper’s room in the Chief-Justice’s dwelling; in the lolling chair of the little drawing-room at Cedarwood waiting for Alick to come back; or at dear old Lyon Hall with little Lenny trying to pull my eyes open. Life seems often very like a dream.”
“And always in any great change of scene or circumstances.”
“And most of all in coming to an old, historical country like this, that we have always known in imagination, and never in reality. But look, uncle! do not let us lose the features of this sweet scene! It will be a picture in our mind’s eye for many coming years. See, away there on the horizon, crowning the most distant of the visible hills, a cluster of old, gray ruins—the remains of some medieval castle or monastery! And look a little further down. See the mossy huts, dotted about at long intervals, half hidden in dells and thickets, and under great trees; and nearer still, the town with its glittering spires and its forest of shipping!”
“Yes, my dear, the ninth century and the nineteenth are brought together in this view!”