the thoughts that
spring from the magical connection of ideas to flit across the
mind, in unison with the visible objects before us; to be tied
down by no earthly cares--sure to find a meal wherever one
stops; and should one happen not to find a bed, to have
nothing worse in store than to sleep _a la belle etoile_,
rocked by the carriage as in a cradle; ever to hear the
rolling of the wheels, which, like the murmur of a brook, the
clapping of a mill, or the splash of oars in the water, forms,
by its uniformity, a soothing accompaniment to the everlasting
fluctuation of thought in the mind. This is a bliss, which,
like that of love and lovers, genuine travellers alone believe
in; and, except genuine lovers, there is nothing more seldom
met with in the world than genuine travellers. For those who
travel from curiosity, from ennui, for health, or for fashion,
or in order to write books, belong not to them, and know
nothing of that intoxicating repose." * [* "Aus der
Gesellschaft," by the Countess Hahn-Hahn.]

Such was the enjoyment in which I hoped Mrs. Hatton found
ample compensation for my silence. She was no doubt a genuine
traveller; for she must have been genuine in every character
she assumed; though I fear that her notion of the happiness of
not talking, and of looking about her, would have fallen short
of the German countess's ideal of a traveller's bliss.

After a journey of about eighty miles, at five o'clock in the
evening we reached the town of Salisbury, where we were to
sleep that night. We ordered dinner at the inn, and I then
walked to the cathedral. I had never seen one before; and when
I came in sight of its tower, and then of the whole of its
beautiful structure, tears rushed into my eyes, and I stood
entranced in contemplation before it. My hands involuntarily
clasped themselves as in prayer, and I longed to fall on my
knees and adore there the God who had given to man's heart to
desire, to his mind to conceive, and to his hand the power of
raising, such shrines for His worship.

Salisbury Cathedral stands in the middle of a close, where
evergreens and shrubs of all kinds rise from the smooth green
grass that grows quite up to the foot of its walls. The door
was closed; but while I sent to procure the key from the
sexton, I walked slowly round the exterior of the cathedral,
and paused for some minutes in a spot where, in a recess
formed by the angles of the building, I stood with nothing
round