. . . but we agreed, on
this occasion, in being tired to death. Just as we got through with the
pictures, I became convinced of what I had been dimly suspecting all the
while, namely, that at my last visit to the palace I had seen these
selfsame pictures, and listened to the selfsame woman's civil answers, in
just the selfsame miserable weariness of mood.
We left the palace, and toiled up through the dirty Canongate, looking
vainly for a fly, and employing our time, as well as we could, in looking
at the squalid mob of Edinburgh, and peeping down the horrible vistas of
the closes, which were swarming with dirty life, as some mouldy and
half-decayed substance might swarm with insects,--vistas down alleys
where sin, sorrow, poverty, drunkenness, all manner of sombre and sordid
earthly circumstances, had imbued the stone, brick, and wood of the
habitations for hundreds of years. And such a multitude of children too;
that was a most striking feature.
After tea I went down into the valley between the old town and the new,
which is now laid out as an ornamental garden, with grass, shrubbery,
flowers, gravelled walks, and frequent seats. Here the sun was setting,
and gilded the old town with its parting rays, making it absolutely the
most picturesque scene possible to be seen. The mass of tall, ancient
houses, heaped densely together, looked like a Gothic dream; for there
seemed to be towers and all sorts of stately architecture, and spires
ascended out of the mass; and above the whole was the castle, with a
diadem of gold on its topmost turret.
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