The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly
Magazine, April 1844, by Various

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844
Volume 23, Number 4

Author: Various

Editor: Lewis Gaylord Clark

Release Date: March 17, 2007 [EBook #20845]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE KNICKERBOCKER ***

Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

T H E K N I C K E R B O C K E R.

VOL. XXIII. APRIL, 1844. NO. 4.

A PILGRIMAGE TO PENSHURST.

BY C. A. ALEXANDER.

One of the admirers of Goethe, commenting on his characteristic
excellencies, has remarked that he is the most _suggestive_ of writers.
Were we to seek an epithet by which to describe the architectural remains
and historical monuments of England, with reference to their impression on
the mind of an observer, perhaps no better could offer itself than that
which has been thus applied to the works of the great German. In the
property of awakening reflection by bringing before the mind that series
of events whose connection with the progress of modern civilization has
been most direct and influential, and of recalling names which, to the
American at least, sound like household words, they stand unrivalled. Our
manners, our customs, our national constitution itself, may be said to
have grown up beneath the shelter of these venerable structures, whose
associations ally them in a manner scarcely less striking with those wider
developments of social and political reason in which we believe the
welfare of our species to be involved. Who is there, that, standing within
'the great hall of William Rufus,' can forget how often it has been the
theatre of those mighty conflicts, in which, however slowly and
reluctantly, error and prejudice have been compelled to relax their hold
on the human mind? Dr. Johnson has spoken to us, in his usual stately
phrase, of patriotism re-invigorated and of piety warmed amid the scenes
of Marathon and Iona; but where is the Marathon which appeals to us so
forcibly as the fie