My next scheme (for to
my restless, ambitious mind London was become a bed of thorns) was to
visit the far-famed peak in Derbyshire, where the Devil sits, they say,
without breeches. _This_ my purer mind rejected as indelicate. And my
final resolve was a tour to the Lakes. I set out with Mary to Keswick,
without giving Coleridge any notice; for my time, being precious, did
not admit of it. He received us with all the hospitality tality in the
world, and gave up his time to show us all the wonders of the country.
He dwells upon a small hill by the side of Keswick, in a comfortable
house, quite enveloped on all sides by a net of mountains,--great
floundering bears and monsters they seemed, all couchant and asleep. We
got in in the evening, travelling in a post-chaise from Penrith, in the
midst of a gorgeous sunshine, which transmuted all the mountains into
colors, purple, etc. We thought we had got into fairy-land. But that
went off (as it never came again; while we stayed, we had no more fine
sunsets); and we entered Coleridge's comfortable study just in the dusk,
when the mountains were all dark, with clouds upon their heads. Such an
impression I never received from objects of sight before, nor do I
suppose that I can ever again. Glorious creatures, fine old fellows,
Skiddaw, etc. I never shall forget ye, how ye lay about that night, like
an intrenchment; gone to bed, as it seemed for the night, but promising
that ye were to be seen in the morning.
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