There is no
use in making a catalogue of these curiosities. The feeling in visiting
Abbotsford is not that of awe; it is little more than going to a museum.
I do abhor this mode of making pilgrimages to the shrines of departed
great men. There is certainly something wrong in it, for it seldom or
never produces (in me, at least) the right feeling. It is an odd truth,
too, that a house is forever after spoiled and ruined as a home, by
having been the abode of a great man. His spirit haunts it, as it were,
with a malevolent effect, and takes hearth and hall away from the nominal
possessors, giving all the world the right to enter there because he had
such intimate relations with all the world.
We had intended to go to Dryburgh Abbey; but as the weather more than
threatened rain, . . . . we gave up the idea, and so took the rail for
Berwick, after one o'clock. On our road we passed several ruins in
Scotland, and some in England,--one old castle in particular, beautifully
situated beside a deep-banked stream. The road lies for many miles along
the coast, affording a fine view of the German Ocean, which was now blue,
sunny, and breezy, the day having risen out of its morning sulks. We
waited an hour or more at Berwick, and J----- and I took a hasty walk
into the town. It is a rough and rude assemblage of rather mean houses,
some of which are thatched. There seems to have been a wall about the
town at a former period, and we passed through one of the gates.
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