It melted on
two or three sides into cultivated fields, and even the private
garden of the Hall seemed a part of it, for there was nothing between
them but a kind of grassy ditch and an almost invisible fence. The
domain of Cowfold Hall was the glory of Cowfold and the pride of its
inhabitants. The modern love of scenery was not known in Cowfold,
and still less was that worship of landscape and nature known which,
as before observed, is peculiar to the generation born under the
influence of Wordsworth. We have learnt, however, from Zachariah
that even before Wordsworth's days people were sometimes touched by
dawn or sunset. The morning cheered, the moon lent pathos and
sentiment, and the stars awoke unanswerable interrogations in
Cowfold, although it knew no poetry, save Dr. Watts, Pollok's Course
of Time, and here and there a little of Cowper. Under the avenue,
too, whose slender columns, in triple rows on either side, rose to an
immense height, and met in a roof overhead with all the grace of
cathedral stone, and without its superincumbent weight and
imprisonment--a roof that was not impervious to the sunlight, but let
it pass and fall in quivering flakes on the ground--Cowfold generally
took off its hat, partly, no doubt, because the place was cool, but
also as an act of homage.
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