In
this respect England itself has the fresh beauty of youth, rather than the
mellowed hues of a more advanced period of life; or it might be better to
say, it has the young freshness and retiring sweetness that distinguish
her females, as compared with the warmer tints of Spain and Italy, and
which, women and landscape alike, need the near view to be appreciated.
Some such thoughts as these passed through the mind of the traveller who
stood on the deck of the packet Montauk, resting an elbow on the
quarter-deck rail, as he contemplated the view of the coast that stretched
before him east and west for leagues. The manner in which this gentleman,
whose temples were sprinkled with grey hairs, regarded the scene, denoted
more of the thoughtfulness of experience, and of tastes improved by
observation, than it is usual to meet amid the bustling and common-place
characters that compose the majority in almost every situation of life.
The calmness of his exterior, an air removed equally from the admiration
of the novice and the superciliousness of the tyro, had, indeed, so
strongly distinguished him from the moment he embarked in London to that
in which he was now seen in the position mentioned, that several of the
seamen swore he was a man-of-war's-man in disguise.
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