Page:Cornwall (Mitton).djvu/16

 POPULAR IDEAS OF CORNWALL 5 The rugged outlines of a well-known face lose meaning with years of familiarity, and are taken for granted ; thus it is with landmarks in Cornwall, which would never figure in such a chronicle at all. Therefore, as this book is intended not so much for those who know Cornwall as for those who will know it sometime in that future which lies beyond the reading of it, the impressions of an outsider are most fitting. There are people who go to Cornwall once for a holiday and return to it ever and again, when they get the chance, unable to find satisfaction anywhere else ; the " atmosphere " of the country has entered into their blood. They think with an ache of the coast in all its cruelty and glory, they picture the bright blue of the rain- washed skies in a burst of sunshine, and they recall the great " hedges " with a foundation or core of stone, generations old, overlaid by an ample covering of turf and grass, a hot-bed for the stonecrop and hart's-tongue, fern, primrose, or foxglove. But what is a catalogue of words ? It conveys nothing, any more than a catalogue of the names of books. Unless one can conjure up feelings, the attempt to explain the grip of the Duchy on recollection is useless. The clammy sea-wind on