Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned by Christopher Morley
page 101 of 211 (47%)
page 101 of 211 (47%)
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black note-book, in which we keep memoranda of a modest pilgrimage
we once made to places mentioned by two of our heroes, viz., Boswell and R.L.S., we think that if we were in C.F.B.'s shoes, one of the regions we would be most anxious to revisit would be Dove Dale, in Derbyshire. This exquisite little valley is reached from Ashbourne, where we commend the _Green Man Inn_ (visited more than once by Doctor Johnson and Boswell). This neighbourhood also has memories of George Eliot, and of Izaak Walton, who used to go fishing in the little river Dove; his fishing house is still there. Unfortunately, when we were in those parts we did not have sense enough to see the Manyfold, a curious stream (a tributary of the Dove) which by its habit of running underground caused Johnson and Boswell to argue about miracles. Muirhead's book will give C.F.B. sound counsel about the inns of that district, which are many and good. The whole region of the Derbyshire Peak is rarely visited by the foreign tourist. Of it, Doctor Johnson, with his sturdy prejudice, said: "He who has seen Dove Dale has no need to visit the Highlands." The metropolis of this moorland is Buxton: unhappily we did not make a note of the inn we visited in that town; but we have a clear recollection of claret, candlelight, and reading "Weir of Hermiston" in bed; also a bathroom with hot water, not too common in the cheap hostelries we frequented. We can only wish for the good C.F.B. as happy an evening as we spent (with our eccentric friend Mifflin McGill) bicycling from the _Newhaven Inn_ in a July twilight. The _Newhaven Inn_, which is only a vile kind of meagre roadhouse at a lonely fork in the way (where one arm of the signpost carries the romantic legend "To Haddon |
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