XI.--Modern houses at Houlgate H. BLACKBURN 253

" 'The Wrestlers' GUSTAVE DORÉ 257




NORMANDY PICTURESQUE.




CHAPTER I.

_ON THE WING._


It is, perhaps, rather a subject for reproach to English people that the
swallows and butterflies of our social system are too apt to forsake
their native woods and glens in the summer months, and to fly to 'the
Continent' for recreation and change of scene; whilst poets tell us,
with eloquent truth, that there is a music in the branches of England's
trees, and a soft beauty in her landscape more soothing and gracious in
their influence than 'aught in the world beside.'

Whether it be wise or prudent, or even pleasant, to leave our island in
the very height of its season, so to speak--at a time when it is most
lovely, when the sweet fresh green of the meadows is changing to bloom
of harvest and gold of autumn--for countries the features of which are