However, the laugher had been rebuked for
his levity, and this incident over, there was nothing further
to disturb me or any one in our solemn little gathering.
It was a very sweet experience, and I cannot say that my early
morning outing would have been equally good at any other
lonely spot on Salisbury Plain or anywhere else with a wide
starry sky above me, the flush of dawn in the east, and the
larks rising heavenward out of the dim misty earth. Those
rudely fashioned immemorial stones standing dark and large
against the pale clear moonlit sky imparted something to the
feeling. I sat among them alone and had them all to myself,
as the others, fearing to tear their clothes on the barbed
wire, had not ventured to follow me when I got through the
fence. Outside the enclosure they were some distance from me,
and as they talked in subdued tones, their voices reached me
as a low murmur--a sound not out of harmony with the silent
solitary spirit of the place; and there was now no other sound
except that of a few larks singing fitfully a long way off.
Just what the element was in that morning's feeling which
Stonehenge contributed I cannot say. It was too vague and
uncertain, too closely interwoven with the more common feeling
for nature. No doubt it was partly due to many untraceable
associations, and partly to a thought, scarcely definite
enough to be called a thought, of man's life in this land from
the time this hoary temple was raised down to the beginning of
history.
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