The morning was fine. The party of five all met in high spirits, anticipating unmingled delight in surveying objects and scenery, scarcely to be surpassed in the three kingdoms. We proceeded to the Old Passage; crossed the Severn, and arrived at the Beaufort Arms, Chepstow, time enough to partake of a good dinner, which one of the company noticed Homer himself had pronounced to be no bad thing: a sentiment in which we all concurred, admiring his profound knowledge of human nature! But prior to our repast, we visited the fine old Castle, so intimately connected with by-gone days; and as soon as possible we purposed to set off toward the Abbey, distant about six or seven miles; taking Piercefield in our way.
Proceeding on my principle of impartial narration, I must here state, that, after dinner, an unpleasant altercation occurred between—no other than the two Pantisocritans! When feelings are accumulated in the heart, the tongue will give them utterance. Mr. Southey, whose regular habits scarcely rendered it a virtue in him, never to fail in an engagement, expressed to Mr. Coleridge his deep feelings of regret, that his audience should have been disappointed on the preceding evening; reminding him that unless he had determined punctually to fulfil his voluntary engagement he ought not to have entered upon it. Mr. C. thought the delay of the lecture of little or no consequence. This excited a remonstrance, which produced a reply. At first I interfered with a few conciliatory words, which were unavailing; and these two friends, about to exhibit to the world a glorious example of the effects of concord and sound principles, with an exemption from all the selfish and unsocial passions, fell, alas! into the common lot of humanity, and in so doing must have demonstrated, even to themselves, the rope of sand to which they had confided their destinies!
In unspeakable concern and surprise I retired to a distant part of the room, and heard with dismay the contention continued, if not extending; for now the two young ladies entered into the dispute, (on adverse sides, as might be supposed) each confirming or repelling the arguments of the belligerents. A little cessation in the storm afforded me the opportunity of stepping forward and remarking that, however much the disappointment was to be regretted, it was an evil not likely again to occur, (Mr. S. shook his head) and that the wisest way, was to forget the past and to remember only the pleasant objects before us. In this opinion the ladies concurred, when placing a hand of one of the dissentients in that of the other, the hearty salutation went round, and with our accustomed spirits, we prepared once more for Piercefield and the Abbey.
Being an indifferent walker (from a former dislocation of my ancle, arising out of a gig accident) I had engaged a horse, while the four pedestrians set forward, two on each side of my Rosinante. After quitting the extensive walks of Piercefield, we proceeded toward that part of the road, where we were to turn off to the right, leading down to Tintern Abbey. We had been delayed so long at Chepstow, and afterward, by various enchanting scenes, particularly that from the Wind-cliff, that we were almost benighted, before we were aware. We recalled all our minute directions. Every object corresponded. A doubt expressed, at a most unlucky moment, whether we were to turn to the right, or to the left, threw ice into some hearts; but at length we all concurred, that it was to the right, and that this must be the road.
These complicated deliberations, allowed the night rapidly to advance, but the grand preliminaries being settled, we approached the "road" and strove to penetrate with our keenest vision into its dark recesses. A road! this it could not be. It was a gross misnomer! It appeared to our excited imaginations, a lane, in the tenth scale of consanguinity to a road; a mere chasm between lofty trees, where the young moon strove in vain to dart a ray! To go or not to go, that was the question! A new consultation was determined upon, what proceeding should be adopted in so painful a dilemma. At length, with an accession of courage springing up as true courage always does in the moment of extremity, we resolutely determined to brave all dangers and boldly to enter on the road, lane, or what it was, where perchance, Cadwallader, or Taliesen, might have trodden before!
On immerging into the wood, for such it was, extending the whole downward way to Tintern, we all suddenly found ourselves deprived of sight; obscurity aggravated almost into pitchy darkness! We could see nothing distinctly whilst we floundered over stones, embedded as they appeared in their everlasting sockets, from the days of Noah. The gurgling of the unseen stream, down in the adjacent gully, (which we perchance might soon be found, reluctantly to visit!) never sounded so discordant before. Having some respect for my limbs (with no bone-setter near) I dismounted, resolving to lead my steed who trembled as though conscious of the perilous expedition on which he had entered. Mr. Coleridge who had been more accustomed to rough riding than myself, upon understanding that I through cowardice had forsaken the saddle, without speaking a word put his foot in the stirrup and mounting, determined to brave at all hazards, the dangers of the campaign.
Our General on his charger floundered on before us over channels that the storms had made, and the upstarting fragments of rocks that seemed confederated to present an insurmountable barrier to every rash and roving wight. We were in a forlorn condition! and never before did we so feelingly sympathize with the poor babes in the wood; trusting, in the last extremity, (should it occur) a few kind robins with their sylvan pall, would honour also our obsequies. This kind of calming ulterior hope might do very well for poets, but it was not quite so consolatory to the ladies, who with all their admiration of disinterested pity, wished to keep off the dear tender-hearted robins a little longer.
These desponding thoughts were of short continuance, for whether the moon had emerged from clouds, or that our sight had become strengthened by exercise, we rejoiced now in being able to see a little, although it might be to reveal only sights of woe. Mr. Southey marched on like a pillar of strength, with a lady pressing on each arm, while the relator lagged in the rear, without even a pilgrim's staff to sustain his tottering steps. Our condition might have been more forlorn, had not Mr. Coleridge from before cheered on his associates in misfortune; and intrepidity produces intrepidity.
The deepest sorrow often admits of some alleviation, and at present our source of beguilement was to invent some appropriate name, in designation of this most[*] horrible channel of communication between man and man. Various acrimonious epithets were propounded, but they all wanted an adequate measure of causticity; when Mr. Southey censuring in us our want of charity, and the rash spirit that loaded with abuse objects which if beheld in noon-day might be allied even to the picturesque, proposed that our path-way, whatever it was, should simply be called—"Bowling-green-lane."
[* Transcriber's note: Corrected from original 'mot'.]