I Was Particularly Impatient At The Last
Post, As I Longed To Assure Myself That My Child Was Well.
My impatience, however, did not prevent my enjoying the journey.
I
had six weeks before passed over the same ground; still it had
sufficient novelty to attract my attention, and beguile, if not
banish, the sorrow that had taken up its abode in my heart. How
interesting are the varied beauties of Nature, and what peculiar
charms characterise each season! The purple hue which the heath now
assumed gave it a degree of richness that almost exceeded the lustre
of the young green of spring, and harmonised exquisitely with the
rays of the ripening corn. The weather was uninterruptedly fine,
and the people busy in the fields cutting down the corn, or binding
up the sheaves, continually varied the prospect. The rocks, it is
true, were unusually rugged and dreary; yet as the road runs for a
considerable way by the side of a fine river, with extended pastures
on the other side, the image of sterility was not the predominant
object, though the cottages looked still more miserable, after
having seen the Norwegian farms. The trees likewise appeared of me
growth of yesterday, compared with those Nestors of the forest I
have frequently mentioned. The women and children were cutting off
branches from the beech, birch, oak, &c, and leaving them to dry.
This way of helping out their fodder injures the trees. But the
winters are so long that the poor cannot afford to lay in a
sufficient stock of hay.
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