The Three Strangers

Yazar

Thomas Hardy

Yayınevi

Morpa Kültür Yayınları

Dil

İngilizce

Sayfa s.

79

Among the few of agricultural England which retain an appearance but little modified by the lapse of centuries may be reckoned the long, grassy and furzy downs, coombs, or eweleases, as they are called according to their kind, that fill a large area of certain counties in the south and south-west. If any mark of human occupation is met with hereon it usually takes the from of the solitary cottage of some shepherd.

Fifty years ago such a lonely cottage stood on such a down and may possibly be standing there now. In spite of its loneliness, however, the spot , by actual measurement, was not more than theree miles from a county town. Yet that affected it litte. Three miles of irregular upland, during the long inimical seasons, with their sleets, snow, rains, and mists, afford withdrawing space enough to isolate a Timon or Nebuchadnezzar; much less, in fair weather, to please that less repellent tribe, the poets, philosophers, artists, and others, who "conceive and meditate of pleasant things"

Some old earthen camp or barrow, some clump of trees, at least some starved fragment of ancient hedge, is usually taken advantage of in the erection of these forlorn dwellings. (...)
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