"The charming, friendly English landscape! Is there any in the world like it? To a traveller returning home it looks so kind,—it seems to shake hands with you as you pass through it."
THACKERAY.
CHAPTER I
CLASSIC SHRINES OF ENGLAND
London, June 29, 1888.—The poet Emerson's injunction, "Set not thy foot on graves," is wise and right; and being in merry England in the month of June it certainly is your own fault if you do not fulfil the rest of the philosophical commandment and "Hear what wine and roses say." Yet the history of England is largely written in her ancient churches and crumbling ruins, and the pilgrim to historic and literary shrines in this country will find it difficult to avoid setting his foot on graves. It is possible here, as elsewhere, to live entirely in the present; but to certain temperaments and in certain moods the temptation is irresistible to live mostly in the past. I write these words in a house which, according to local tradition, was once occupied by Nell Gwynn, and as I glance into the garden I see a venerable acacia that was planted by her fair hands, in the far-off time of the Merry Monarch. Within a few days I have stood in the dungeon of Guy Fawkes, in the Tower, and sat at luncheon in a manor-house of Warwickshire wherein were once convened the conspirators of the Gunpowder Plot. The newspapers of this morning announce that a monument will be dedicated on July 19 to commemorate the defeat of the Spanish Armada, three hundred years ago. It is not unnatural that the wanderer should live in the past, and often should find himself musing over its legacies.