The impression of horror with which Waverley left Carlisle softened¹ by degrees into melancholy², a gradation which was accelerated by the painful yet soothing³ task of writing to Rose; and, while he could not suppress his own feelings of the calamity⁴, he endeavoured to place it in a light which might grieve her without shocking her imagination. The picture which he drew for her benefit he gradually familiarised to his own mind, and his next letters were more cheerful, and referred to the prospects⁶ of peace and happiness which lay before them. Yet, though his first horrible sensations had sunk into melancholy, Edward had reached his native country before he could, as usual on former occasions, look round for enjoyment⁷ upon the face of nature.

He then, for the first time since leaving Edinburgh, began to experience that pleasure which almost all feel who return to a verdant⁸, populous⁹, and highly cultivated country from scenes of waste desolation or of solitary¹⁰ and melancholy grandeur¹¹. But how were those feelings enhanced when he entered on the domain¹² so long possessed¹³ by his forefathers¹⁴; recognised the old oaks of Waverley- Chace; thought with what delight he should introduce Rose to all his favourite haunts;

分享到：