The sides of the gullies, which had to be ascended and
descended, though never reaching to the picturesque proportions
of precipices, were yet sufficiently steep and rough to make very
fatiguing riding for a lady unaccustomed to such exercise. And George
Eliot was in no very robust condition of health at the time. And
despite his well dissembled anxiety I could see that Lewes was not
easy respecting her capability of resisting the heat, the fatigue, and
the unwonted exercise. But her cheerfulness and activity of interest
never failed her for an instant. Her mind "made increment of
everything." Nor even while I led her horse down some of the
worst descents did the exigencies of the path avail to interrupt
conversation, full of thought and far-reaching suggestiveness, as her
talk ever was.
At last we reached the spot where the territory of the monastery
commences; and it is one that impresses itself on the imagination and
the memory in a measure not likely to be forgotten. The change is like
a pantomime transformation scene! The traveller passes without the
slightest intermediate gradation from the dreary scene which has been
described, into the shade and the beauty of a region of magnificent
and well-managed forest! The bodily delight of passing from the severe
glare of the sun into this coolness, welcome alike to the skin and to
the eye, was very great. And to both my companions, but especially to
George Eliot, the great beauty of the scene we entered on gave the
keenest pleasure.
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