However, I
Seemed Resolved To Make More Than One Stage Of It To Oxford, That
Seat Of The Muses, And So, By Passing The Night About Five Miles
From It, To Reach It In Good Time Next Morning.
The road from Nettlebed seemed to me but as one long fine gravel
walk in a neat garden.
And my pace in it was varied, like that of
one walking in a garden: I sometimes walked quick, then slow, and
then sat down and read Milton.
When I had got about eight miles from Nettlebed, and was now not far
from Dorchester, I had the Thames at some distance on my left, and
on the opposite side I saw an extensive hill, behind which a tall
mast seemed to rise. This led me to suppose that on the other side
of the hill there must needs also be a river. The prospect I
promised myself from this hill could not possibly be passed, and so
I went out of the road to the left over a bridge across the Thames,
and mounted the hill, always keeping the mast in view. When I had
attained the summit, I found (and not without some shame and
chagrin) that it was all an illusion. There was, in fact, nothing
before me but a great plain, and the mast had been fixed there,
either as a maypole only, or to entice curious people out of their
way.
I therefore now again, slowly and sullenly, descended the hill, at
the bottom of which was a house, where several people were looking
out of the window, and, as I supposed, laughing at me.
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