We arrived at the Lowwood Hotel, which is very near the head of the lake,
not long after two o'clock. It stands almost on the shore of Windermere,
with only a green lawn between,--an extensive hotel, covering a good deal
of ground; but low, and rather village-inn-like than lofty. We found the
house so crowded as to afford us no very comfortable accommodations,
either as to parlor or sleeping-rooms, and we find nothing like the
home-feeling into which we at once settled down at Newby Bridge. There
is a very pretty vicinity, and a fine view of mountains to the northwest,
sitting together in a family group, sometimes in full sunshine, sometimes
with only a golden gleam on one or two of them, sometimes all in a veil
of cloud, from which here and there a great, dusky head raises itself,
while you are looking at a dim obscurity. Nearer, there are high, green
slopes, well wooded, but with such decent and well-behaved wood as you
perceive has grown up under the care of man; still no wildness, no
ruggedness,--as how should there be, when, every half-mile or so, a
porter's lodge or a gentleman's gateway indicates that the whole region
is used up for villas. On the opposite shore of the lake there is a
mimic castle, which I suppose I might have mistaken for a real one two
years ago. It is a great, foolish toy of gray stone.
A steamboat comes to the pier as many as six times a day, and
stage-coaches and omnibuses stop at the door still oftener, communicating
with Ambleside and the town of Windermere, and with the railway, which
opens London and all the world to us.
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