ning, however, which
belonged to that particular war of the elements, are rare in England.
The rain is quiet, fine, insinuating, constant as a lover,--not wasting
its resources in sudden, explosive outbreaks.

During a foot-tramp of some four hundred miles, which I once had the
pleasure of making upon English soil, and which led me from the mouth of
the Thames to its sources, and thence through Derbyshire, the West
Riding of Yorkshire, and all of the Lake counties, I do not think that
the violence of the rain kept me housed for more than five days out of
forty. Not to say that the balance showed sunshine and a bonny sky; on
the contrary, a soft, lubricating mist is the normal condition of the
British atmosphere; and a neutral tint of gray sky, when no wet is
falling, is almost sure to call out from the country-landlord, if
communicative, an explosive and authoritative, "Fine morning, this,
Sir!"

The really fine, sunny days--days you believed in rashly, upon the sunny
evidence of such blithe poets as Herrick--are so rare, that, after a
month of British travel, you can count them on your fingers. On such a
one, by a piece of good fortune, I saw all the parterres of Hampton
Court,--its great vine, its labyrinthine walks, its stately alleys, its
ruddy range of brick, its clipped lindens, its rotund and low-necked
beauties of Sir Peter Lely, and the red geraniums flaming on the
window-sills of once royal apartments, where the pensioned dowagers now
dream away their lives. On another such day, Twickenham, and all its
delights of trees, bowers, and villas, were flashing in the sun as
brightly as ever in the best days of Horace Walpole or of Pope. And on
yet another, after weary tramp, I toiled up to the inn-door of "The
Bear," at Woodstock; and after a cut or two into a ripe haunch of
Oxfordshire mutton, with certain "tiny kickshaws," I saw, for the first
time, under the light of a glorious sunset, that exquisite velvety
stretch of the park of Woodstock, dimpled with water, dotted with
forest--clumps, where companies of sleek fallow-deer were grazing by the
hundred, where pheasants whirred away down the aisles of wood, where
memories of Fair Rosamond and of Rochester and of Alice Lee
lingered,--and all brought to a ringing close by Southey's ballad of
"Blenheim," as the shadow of the gaunt Marlborough column slanted across
the path.

There are other notable places, however, which seem--so dependent are we
on first impress