BOLTON STRID.
I stopped here to see the Strid again—not seen these many years. It is curious that life is embittered to me, now, by its former pleasantness; while you have of these same places painful recollections, but you could enjoy them now with your whole heart.
Instead of the drive with the poor over-labored one horse through the long wet day, here, when I was a youth, my father and mother brought me, [16] and let me sketch in the Abbey and ramble in the woods as I chose, only demanding promise that I should not go near the Strid. [Pg 22] Pleasant drives, with, on the whole, well paid and pleased drivers, never with over-burdened cattle; cheerful dinner or tea waiting for me always, on my return from solitary rambles. Everything right and good for me, except only that they never put me through any trials to harden me, or give me decision of character, or make me feel how much they did for me.
But that error was a fearful one, and cost them and me, Heaven only knows how much. And now, I walk to Strid, and Abbey, and everywhere, with the ghosts of the past days haunting me, and other darker spirits of sorrow and remorse and wonder. Black spirits among the gray, all like a mist between me and the green woods. And I feel like a caterpillar,—stung just enough. Foul weather and mist enough, of quite a real kind besides. An hour's sunshine to-day, broken up speedily, and now veiled utterly.
Herne Hill, London
,
11th February, 1875.