_Saturday, Bristol, July 23d._ ... We started at eight, and taking
the whole coach to ourselves as we do, I think traveling by a
public conveyance the best mode of getting over the road. They run
so rapidly; there is so little time lost, and so much trouble with
one's luggage saved. The morning was gray and soft and promised a
fine day, but broke its promise at the end of our second stage, and
began to pelt with rain, which it continued to do the live-long
blessed day. We could see, however, that the country we were
passing through was charming. One or two of the cottages by the
roadside, half-smothered in vine and honeysuckle, reminded me of
Lady Juliana,[B] who, when she said she could live in a desert with
her lover, thought that it was a "sort of place full of roses." ...
These laborers' cottages were certainly the poor dwellings of very
poor people, but there was nothing unsightly, repulsive, or squalid
about them--on the contrary, a look of order, of tidy neatness
about the little houses, that added the peculiarly English element
of comfort and cleanliness to the picturesqueness of their fragrant
festoons of flowery drapery, hung over them by the sweet season.
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