{287} And till we have learnt that,
may Greek books still form the basis of our liberal education, and
may Greek statues, or even English attempts to copy them, fill public
halls and private houses. This generation may not understand their
divine and eternal significance; but a future generation, doubt it
not, will spell it out right well.'
Claude and I went forth along the cliffs of a park, which, though not
of the largest, is certainly of the loveliest in England,--perhaps
unique, from that abrupt contact of the richest inland scenery with
the open sea, which is its distinctive feature. As we wandered along
the edge of the cliff, beneath us on our left lay wooded valleys,
lawns spotted with deer, stately timber trees, oak and beech, birch
and alder, growing as full and round-headed as if they had been
buried in some Shropshire valley fifty miles inland, instead of
having the Atlantic breezes all the winter long sweeping past a few
hundred feet above their still seclusion. Glens of forest wound away
into the high inner land, with silver burns sparkling here and there
under their deep shadows; while from the lawns beneath, the ground
sloped rapidly upwards towards us, to stop short in a sheer wall of
cliff, over which the deer were leaning to crop the shoots of ivy,
where the slipping of a stone would have sent them 400 feet
perpendicular into the sea.
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