James John Hissey

“ Spalding is a place that seems more of a natural growth, an integral part of the scenery, so in harmony is it therewith, rather than a conglomeration of houses built merely for man’s convenience. Such charmingly old-fashioned, prosperous, but delightfully unprogressive towns are not to be met with every day, when the ambition of most places appears to be more or less a second-hand copy of London; and at a sacrifice of all individuality they strive after this undesirable ideal. How refreshing is a little originality in this world, that grows more sadly commonplace and colourless year by year! ”

“ At the foot of the descent we found a large and lone old-fashioned farmstead surrounded by a colony of flint-built barns and out-houses; the little slothful river Cuckmere seeking its way to the sea, with many windings, ran close by. The grey old farmstead with its weather-stained walls, the tranquil, reedy river below, the bare and silent downs beyond, struck a note of intense quietness. A peacefulness profound brooded over this out-of-the-world spot: it might have been a hundred miles from anywhere. A picture, too, it made, effective in its breadth and simplicity. ”

“ The sun-bright air flooded the landscape with its light; an air so clear and pure and sweet, so balmy yet so bracing, it made us exultant and our journey a joy! Sunshine and fresh air, the fresh air of the Wolds, the Downs, the moors, and the mountains, are as inspiriting as champagne, and the finest cure in the world for pessimism! Whenever I feel inclined that way I go a-driving across country and forget all about it! So we drove on in a delightful day-dream, rejoicing that fate had led us into the Lincolnshire highlands. ”

“ Now and then we caught the scent of new-mown hay, sweetening the air as we drove along under the shadow of leafy trees, and anon in the sunshine. The scent of new-mown hay or of a fragrant beanfield in blossom, how delightful a thing it is; shop-purchased perfumery is poor stuff indeed compared with it. For once we looked above rather than around for beauty, above to the windy, wide, white-clouded sky, with its ever-varying incident of passing and changeful form; for the skyscape has interests as well as the landscape, and there are times when it is the more interesting of the two. ”

“ A LONELY COUNTRY so on to our night’s destination at Wainfleet we passed no villages and saw no churches. It was a lonely stretch of road; for company we had, besides the stunted trees, only the wide earth and open sky; but such loneliness has its charms to the vigorous mind, it was all so suggestive of space and freedom, begetful of broad thinking and expanded views. To look upon Nature thus is to make one realise the littleness of the minor worries of life. The mind is too apt to get cramped at times by cramped surroundings, the vision impresses the brain more than most people are aware. ”

“ Next we came to Henfield, a quiet and picturesque village. After Henfield we got into a sequestered land beyond railways and on to some pleasant by-roads and narrow lanes where in sunny nooks hosts of wild flowers flourished, and the hedges delighted in tangled disorder. We were again in a land of sleepy farmsteads of the old Sussex type, farmsteads of time-toned walls, weather-tinted tiling, long, low, lichen-laden roofs, and great chimney-stacks—always a great and shapely chimney-stack of much the same pattern, but of a very good and pleasing pattern. ”

“ No other ruin has impressed us quite in the same way, but then Crowland Abbey has a striking individuality seen from near or afar; it is utterly unlike any other spot, and from every point of view forms a most effective picture. Time has fraught its ancient walls with meaning, and the rare dower of antiquity, the bloom of centuries is gathered over them all—a bloom that has beautified what man and age have left of the former hallowed sanctuary. Now a solemn peacefulness broods incumbent over Crowland’s solitary tower, broken arches, and decaying masonry. ”

“ A land where the eye had freedom to rove over wide spaces of green right away to a circling horizon of blue, and a wild wind swept over it, fresh, cool, and laden with the pungent scent of marsh flowers—as fresh and cool as the wind that sweeps over the sea, only without its salt savour. The wind was making holiday; it tossed the long grasses and reeds about, it bent down the hedges before it, it made mimic waves and Lilliputian tempests on the ponds that we passed. It is wind that gives life to a scene, and the strife of it stirred the blood in our veins. ”

“ A LAZY LAND satisfied simply to admire the extended and varied picture gallery that nature presented to us free.
Except the striking prospect of Lincoln that we had towards the end of our dreamy stage, I can only now recall of it a confused memory of green and golden fields; of shady woods, beautiful with the many tints of autumn; of hedgerowed lanes, that in a less lazy mood we should certainly have explored; of picturesque old cottages and rambling time-toned farmsteads, the very picture of contentment; of silvery gliding streams, and a vague blue distance bounding all. ”

“ The ancient mill, wood, and tumbling water, what a perfect picture they made! There on a grassy bank opposite I found an ideal place for my purpose, with the song of the mill-wheel, the swish and splash of the weir, the twittering of birds and the soothing cooing of pigeons to enliven that peace-bestowing solitude, a retired nook where one might "dream down hours to moments." Yet there was no hint from the roadway of mill or river, of anything else than a little wood. How much of quiet beauty that little wood conceals from the vulgar public gaze! ”

“ A peace that is not of our time broods incumbent over it, a tranquillity that has been handed down unimpaired from ages past lingers lovingly around.
On one side of the little-travelled road and a trifle back therefrom stands the rambling rectory, with its home-like, yellow-washed walls, and ridged{317} and red-tiled roof; on the other stands the ancient church hoary with age; while just beyond the rectory is a quaint old manor house, or grange, formerly moated and now half buried in trees—and this is Somersby. A spot worthy of being the birthplace of a great poet, “a haunt of ancient peace.” ”

“ I could hardly believe my eyes, [Pg 312] yet there before me stood an ancient moated home, grey, gabled, and ivy-clad, with a broken bell-turret on its lichen-laden roof, its leaded-light windows reflecting the sunlight, and its big chimney-stacks rising boldly up against the sky; nor shall I forget the special moment when I crossed the deep moat by a moss-grown bridge and knocked at the great oak and nail-studded door. I felt like one in a dream, that this could not be a reality, and that I should suddenly wake up and find myself deceived, disenchanted, and in the commonplace world again. ”

“ Here too we discovered a rambling old mill, the subdued droning of whose great wheel mingled with the plashing of falling water and the murmuring sur—sur—suring of the wind-stirred foliage—sounds that were just enough to make us realise the stillness and tranquilness of the spot. One does not always comprehend the quietude of Nature; we travel too much in company to do this. But besides the old mill, that so pleased us that we forthwith made a sketch of it, there was close at hand an ancient lock, gray and green, and just sufficiently tumble-down to be perfectly picturesque. ”

“ After Aldbourne the country had a wild and a deserted look, for we found ourselves traversing the open downs where the landmarks are few, our grey road winding before us miles away, with nothing else visible but bare, green, sun-flushed hills around. It was a glorious drive over those billowy downs, and bracing was the air of them, delightful too in its purity and in the delicate scent of the thymy turf that the breezes gathered on their way and brought to us. There one might indulge in
The pleasure of believing what we see
Is boundless, as we wish our souls to be. ”

“ It is not the height one may be above a scene that gives the observer therefrom the best impression of it; indeed one may easily be elevated too far above scenery to appreciate it properly. A bird’s-eye view of a landscape is not the one an artist would select to paint; there is such a thing as a picturesque and an unpicturesque way of looking on an object. Sometimes, truly, scenery has been painted as a bird sees it, for the sake of novelty; but novelty is not synonymous with beauty: they may join hands at times, but as a rule they are utter strangers one to another. ”

“ Strolling about the ancient village, I espied, on the further side of the churchyard, a grey old home of the Tudor time, so substantially built those long years ago that to-day it looks, but for the time-toning of its stones and the slight crumbling of one here and there, almost as perfect as when first finished. Its mullion windows are without the usual transomes, and do not seem to need them; their leaden lattice-panes gleamed, just then, cheerfully in the light. Windows are the eyes of a house, in their way as expressive as those of a human being. ”

“ At one point there suddenly opened a fine view to the left, reaching over a vast extent of country bounded by an uneven horizon of wooded hills—hills that showed as a long, low undulating line, deeply blue, but enlivened by touches of greeny-gold where the sunshine rested for a moment here and there; it was as if Nature in one of her lavish moods had washed the horizon over with a tint of ultramarine, “for who can paint like Nature?”—little she recks the quantity or the rarity of the hues she employs, miles upon miles oftentimes, and that for a mere transient effect! ”

“ Even on the wild Canadian prairies, before the coming of the colonist, one could hardly find a solitude more apparently profound than mine that day, for the eye cannot see farther than the uttermost horizon; beyond might be the end of the world.
Just to live in the present, content with the present, that was my mood of the moment, neither looking backwards nor forwards, being simply thankful to be alive without any pain of body—that is the true holiday spirit, that is the wine of life; then pure laziness is a virtue, for if a man would enjoy his holiday lazing, laze he should. ”