ect with the hues of the rainbow. I had been surrounded with fancied
beings; with mere airy nothings, conjured up by poetic power; yet which,
to me, had all the charm of reality. I had heard Jacques soliloquize
beneath his oak; had beheld the fair Rosalind and her companion
adventuring through the woodlands; and, above all, had been once more
present in spirit with fat Jack Falstaff, and his contemporaries, from the
august Justice Shallow down to the gentle Master Slender, and the sweet
Anne Page.

NEWSTEAD ABBEY [Footnote: From "English Note Books." By permission of, and
by arrangement with, the publishers of Hawthorne's works, Houghton,
Mifflin Co. Copyright, 1870-1898.]

BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

Our drive to Newstead lay through what was once a portion of Sherwood
Forest, tho all of it, I believe, has now become private property, and is
converted into fertile fields, except where the owners of estates have set
out plantations.... The post-boy calls the distance ten miles from
Nottingham. He also averred that it was forbidden to drive visitors within
the gates; so we left the fly at the inn, and set out to walk from the
entrance to the house. There is no porter's lodge; and the grounds, in
this outlying region, had not the appearance of being very primly kept,
but were well wooded with evergreens, and much overgrown with ferns,
serving for cover for hares, which scampered in and out of their
hiding-places. The road went winding gently along, and, at the distance of
nearly a mile, brought us to a second gate, through which we likewise
passed, and walked onward a good way farther, seeing much wood, but as yet
nothing of the Abbey.

At last, through the trees, we caught a glimpse of its battlements, and
saw, too, the gleam of water, and then appeared the Abbey's venerable
front. It comprises the western wall of the church, which is all that
remains of that fabric, a great, central window, entirely empty, without
tracery or mullions; the ivy clambering up on the inside of the wall, and
hanging over in front. The front of the inhabited part of the house
extends along on a line with this church wall, rather low, with
battlements along its top, and all in good keeping with the ruinous
remnant. We met a servant, who replied civilly to our inquiries about the
mode of gaining admittance, and bade us ring a bell at the corner of the
principal porch. We rang accordingly, and were forthwith admitted into a
low, vaulted ba