And as I heard the song of the gondoliers as they went their way--the
song dying away in the distance as the shadows of the sundown closed
around me--I felt that they were singing the requiem of the only love
that had ever entered my heart.




THE PARSON'S DAUGHTER OF OXNEY COLNE

By Anthony Trollope

(_London Review_, 2 March 1861)


The prettiest scenery in all England--and if I am contradicted in that
assertion, I will say in all Europe--is in Devonshire, on the southern
and southeastern skirts of Dartmoor, where the rivers Dart and Avon and
Teign form themselves, and where the broken moor is half cultivated, and
the wild-looking uplands fields are half moor. In making this assertion
I am often met with much doubt, but it is by persons who do not really
know the locality. Men and women talk to me on the matter who have
travelled down the line of railway from Exeter to Plymouth, who have
spent a fortnight at Torquay, and perhaps made an excursion from
Tavistock to the convict prison on Dartmoor. But who knows the glories
of Chagford? Who has walked through the parish of Manaton? Who is
conversant with Lustleigh Cleeves and Withycombe in the moor? Who has
explored Holne Chase? Gentle reader, believe me that you will be rash in
contradicting me unless you have done these things.