The water is fed by a perpetual spring, whose current is so sluggish
as scarcely to be perceptible, but which yet has the vitality of a
running stream.
It has a dark and glassy stillness of surface, only broken by the
forms of the water plants, whose leaves float thickly over it.
The walls of the moat are green with ancient moss, and from the
crevices springs an abundant flowering vine, whose delicate leaves and
bright yellow flowers in some places entirely mantle the stones with
their graceful drapery.
[Illustration: _of Playford Hall._]
The picture I have given you represents only one side of the moat. The
other side is grown up with dark and thick shrubbery and ancient
trees, rising and embowering the entire place, adding to the retired
and singular effect of the whole. The place is a specimen of a sort of
thing which does not exist in America. It is one of those significant
landmarks which unite the present with the past, for which we must
return to the country of our origin.
Playford Hall is peculiarly English, and Thomas Clarkson, for whose
sake I visited it, was as peculiarly an Englishman - a specimen of the
very best kind of English mind and character, as this is of
characteristic English architecture.
