Memorials from Ben Rhydding; concerning the place, its people, its cures . vapour, as if with an atmo-sphere of gold, and tinting every tree, every leaf,with that rare yellow green which makes eveningat any season autumnal.—Right in so far was thepoet— Lady! we do receive but u/tat we give,And in our life alone does Nature live. And strange tales I have heard in corroboration;how the best places of the earth—starred mid-night itself—have been seen, and yet not seen,the eye being filled with emptiness: neverthelessNature is never altogether passive ; if at first shegives not of herself, she at
Memorials from Ben Rhydding; concerning the place, its people, its cures . vapour, as if with an atmo-sphere of gold, and tinting every tree, every leaf,with that rare yellow green which makes eveningat any season autumnal.—Right in so far was thepoet— Lady! we do receive but u/tat we give,And in our life alone does Nature live. And strange tales I have heard in corroboration;how the best places of the earth—starred mid-night itself—have been seen, and yet not seen,the eye being filled with emptiness: neverthelessNature is never altogether passive ; if at first shegives not of herself, she at least woos us to give;and I think, however cross the Lady, or pre-occu-pied with landscapes of Lace and Ludgate Hill, I 34 WESTERN VALLEY. might venture to lay her down to look on thatloveliness, in rational if not sanguine hope of herfinally moving homeward in calmness, perhapsin penitence; possessed, it may be, by some newand strange desire, that — bke the fascinatedbridegroom of the gray-haired mariner—at oncesadder and wiser she may wake to-morrowmorn !. NEIGHBOURING COUNTRY. 35 1 dwell thus especially on the character andscenery of Ben Rhydding, not merely to enjoyagain the pleasures I have thence derived, farless because I would indite irrelevant eulogies;but chiefly on account of this—that to be en-vironed by natural forms, fitted to silence irri-tation, and to stimulate by their variety, is atonce a distinctive and a signal Hygienic attri-bute of the place. With the same object it woulddelight me to overpass the limits of Wharfe-dale,—journeying towards neighbouring spots ofbeauty and interest, which from this central pointone can visit, alone or in company, and return, ina single day. I might speak, for instance, ofHarewood, a superb Italian Villa, with corre-sponding Gardens, in themselves exquisite —although it might be questioned by the sensitive,how far such things can ever harmonise with theshifting aerial masses which constitute a promi-nent and
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