interruptions of such society, he found leisure and health enough here
to give him vigor for exertions astonishing for so weak a frame. The
tastes he indulged here, if they were not faultless according to our
notions, were healthy, and they endured. To the end of his life he
preserved his strong attachment to his house and grounds.



V

OTHER ENGLISH SCENES



STONEHENGE [Footnote: From "English Traits." Published by Houghton,
Mifflin Co. Emerson's second visit to England, during which he saw
Stonehenge, was made in 1847. Of all the Druidical remains in Europe,
Stonehenge is perhaps the most remarkable, altho at Carnac in Brittany
on the northern shore of the Bay of Biscay, are Druidical remains more
numerous, but in general they are smaller and less suggestive of
constructive design.]

BY RALPH WALDO EMERSON

We left the train at Salisbury, and took a carriage to Amesbury, passing
by Old Sarum, a bare, treeless hill, once containing the town which sent
two members to Parliament--now, not a hut--and, arriving at Amesbury, we
stopt at the George Inn. After dinner we walked to Salisbury Plain. On
the broad downs, under the gray sky, not a house was visible, nothing
but Stonehenge, which looked like a group of brown dwarfs in the wide