Page:Letters from Abroad to Kindred at Home (Volume 1).djvu/38

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SOUTHAMPTON.
35

ble descend into Carisbrooke well,[1] I felt as if old legends had become incorporate.




We expect nothing pleasanter than the week we have spent on the Isle of Wight. How much of our enthusiasm it may owe to our coming to it from shipboard, and to the fresh impressions of the Old World, of its thatched cottages, ivied walls, old churches and churchyards, and English cultivation, I cannot say. The English speak of it as all "in little," a cockney affair, &c.; but, if small, it has the delicacy and perfection of a cabinet picture.



SOUTHAMPTON.

My dear C.,

Thursday, 13th. The luxury of an English inn, after a day exhausting as our last on the Isle of Wight, has never been exaggerated and cannot be overpraised. We have not been ten days in England, without having certain painful comparisons between our own inns and those of this country, forced upon us. But I intend, after I have had more experience, to give you my observations on this subject in one plentiful shower, instead of annoying you with sprinkling them over all my letters.


Our intention was to have proceeded directly to London. Instead of this we have loitered here two days, and why, I will tell you.

  1. The well is 200 feet in depth, 25 of masonry, and the rest cut through a solid rock.