PART I.
PIPES IN ARCADY.
I hardly can bring myself to part with this story, it has been
such a private joy to me. Moreover, that I have lain awake in the
night to laugh over it is no guarantee of your being passably
amused. Yourselves, I dare say, have known what it is to awake in
irrepressible mirth from a dream which next morning proved to be flat
and unconvincing. Well, this my pet story has some of the qualities
of a dream; being absurd, for instance, and almost incredible, and
even a trifle inhuman. After all, I had better change my mind, and
tell you another--
But no; I will risk it, and you shall have it, just as it befel.
I had taken an afternoon's holiday to make a pilgrimage: my goal
being a small parish church that lies remote from the railway, five
good miles from the tiniest of country stations; my purpose to
inspect--or say, rather, to contemplate--a Norman porch, for which it
ought to be widely famous. (Here let me say that I have an unlearned
passion for Norman architecture--to enjoy it merely, not to write
about it.)
To carry me on my first stage I had taken a crawling local train
that dodged its way somehow between the regular expresses and the
"excursions" that invade our Delectable Duchy from June to October.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25