Page:First impressions of England and its people.djvu/18

X there is considerably more of eye and ear in them,—of things seen and heard,—than of aught else. They index, however, not much of what he might be led equally to expect,—those diagnostic symptoms impressed on the face of society, that indicate the extensive changes, secular and ecclesiastical, which seem so peculiarly characteristic of the time. The journey of which they form a record was undertaken purely for purposes of relaxation, in that state of indifferent health, and consequent languor, which an over-strain of the mental faculties usually induces, and in which, like the sick animal that secludes itself from the herd, man prefers walking apart from his kind, to seeking them out in the bustle and turmoil of active life, there to note peculiarities of aspect or character, like an adventurous artist taking sketches amid the heat of a battle. They will, however, lead the reader who accompanies me in my rambles considerably out of the usual route of the tourist, into sequestered corners, associated with the rich literature of England, or amid rocks and caverns, in which the geologist finds curious trace of the history of the country as it existed during the long cycles of the bygone creations. I trust I need scarce apologize to the general reader for my frequent transitions from the actual state of things to those extinct states which obtained in what is now England, during the geologic periods. The art, so peculiar to the present age, of deciphering the ancient hieroglyphics sculptured on the rocks of our country, is gradually extending from the few to the many: it will be comparatively a common accomplishment half a generation hence; and when the hard names of the science shall