away; for hark! the
Church-tower tolls ten--and see the sun is high in heaven. High, but not
hot--for the first September frosts chilled the rosy fingers of the morn
as she bathed them in the dews, and the air is cool as a cucumber. Cool
but bland--and as clear and transparent as a fine eye lighted up by a
good conscience. There were breezes in Bowness Bay--but here there are
none--or, if there be, they but whisper aloft in the tree-tops, and
ruffle not the water, which is calm as Louisa's breast. The small isles
here are but few in number--yet the best arithmetician of the party
cannot count them--in confusion so rich and rare do they blend their
shadows with those of the groves on the Isle called Beautiful, and on
the Furness Fells. A tide imperceptible to the eye drifts us on among
and above those beautiful reflections--that downward world of hanging
dreams! and ever and anon we beckon unto Billy gently to dip his oar,
that we may see a world destroyed and recreated in one moment of time.
Yes, Billy! thou art a poet--and canst work more wonders with thine oar
than could he with his pen who painted "heavenly Una with her milk-white
lamb," wandering by herself in Fairyland. How is it, pray, that our
souls are satiated with such beauty as this? Is it because 'tis
unsubstantial all--senseless, though fair--and in its evanescence
unsuited to the sympathies that yearn for the permanencies of breathing
life? Dreams are delightful only as delusions within the delusion of
this our mortal waking existence--one touch of what we call reality
dissolves them all; blissful though they may have been, we care not when
the bubble bursts--nay, we are glad again to return to our own natural
world, care-haunted though in its happiest moods it be--glad as if we
had escaped from glamoury; and, oh! beyond expression sweet it is once
more to drink the light of living eyes--the music of living lips--after
that preternatural hush that steeps the shadowy realms of the
imagination, whether stretching along a sunset-heaven or the mystical
imagery of earth and sky floating in the lustre of lake or sea.

Therefore "row, vassals, row, for the pride of the Lowlands;" and as
rowing is a thirsty exercise, let us land at the Ferry, and each man
refresh himself with a horn of ale.

There is not a prettier place on all Windermere than the Ferry-House, or
one better adapted for a honey-moon. You can hand your bride into a boat
almost out of the parlour w