Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands (Vol.1&2). Harriet Beecher StoweЧитать онлайн книгу.

      Here, too, in Linlithgow church, tradition says that James IV. was warned, by a strange apparition, against that expedition to England which cost him his life. Scott has worked this incident up into a beautiful description, in the fourth canto of Marmion.

      The castle has a very sad and romantic appearance, standing there all alone as it does, looking down into the quiet lake. It is said that the internal architectural decorations are exceedingly rich and beautiful, and a resemblance has been traced between its style of ornament and that of Heidelberg Castle, which has been accounted for by the fact that the Princess Elizabeth, who was the sovereign lady of Heidelberg, spent many of the earlier years of her life in this place.

      Not far from here we caught a glimpse of the ruins of Niddrie Castle, where Mary spent the first night after her escape from Lochleven.

      The Avon here at Linlithgow is spanned by a viaduct, which is a fine work of art. It has twenty-five arches, which are from seventy to eighty feet high and fifty wide.

      As the cars neared Edinburgh we all exclaimed at its beauty, so worthily commemorated by Scott:—

      "Such dusky grandeur clothes the height,

      Where the huge castle holds its state,

      And all the steeps slope down,

      Whose ridgy back heaves to the sky,

      Piled deep and massy, close and high,

      Mine own romantic town!"

      Edinburgh has had an effect on the literary history of the world for the last fifty years, that cannot be forgotten by any one approaching her. The air seemed to be full of spirits of those who, no longer living, have woven a part of the thread of our existence. I do not know that the shortness of human life ever so oppressed me as it did on coming near to the city.

      At the station house the cars stopped amid a crowd of people, who had assembled to meet us. The lord provost met us at the door of the car, and presented us to the magistracy of the city, and the committees of the Edinburgh antislavery societies. The drab dresses and pure white bonnets of many Friends were conspicuous among the dense moving crowd, as white doves seen against a dark cloud. Mr. S. and myself, and our future hostess, Mrs. Wigham, entered the carriage with the lord provost, and away we drove, the crowd following with their shouts and cheers. I was inexpressibly touched and affected by this. While we were passing the monument of Scott, I felt an oppressive melancholy. What a moment life seems in the presence of the noble dead! What a momentary thing is art, in all its beauty! Where are all those great souls that have created such an atmosphere of light about Edinburgh? and how little a space was given them to live and to enjoy!

      We drove all over Edinburgh, up to the castle, to the university, to Holyrood, to the hospitals, and through many of the principal streets, amid shouts, and smiles, and greetings. Some boys amused me very much by their pertinacious attempts to keep up with the carriage.

      "Heck," says one of them, "that's her; see the courls."

      The various engravers, who have amused themselves by diversifying my face for the public, having all, with great unanimity, agreed in giving prominence to this point, I suppose the urchins thought they were on safe ground there. I certainly think I answered one good purpose that day, and that is, of giving the much oppressed and calumniated class, called boys, an opportunity to develop all the noise that was in them—a thing for which I think they must bless me in their remembrances.

      At last the carriage drove into a deep gravelled yard, and we alighted at a porch covered with green ivy, and found ourselves once more at home.