BY-GONE TOURIST DAYS
By-gone Tourist Days
Letters of Travel
By LAURA G. COLLINS
Author of “Immortelles and Asphodels”
ILLUSTRATED
“I consider letters the most vital part of literature”
--_Elizabeth Barrett Browning_
CINCINNATI THE ROBERT CLARKE COMPANY 1900
Copyright, 1899,
By The Robert Clarke Company.
INSCRIPTION.
_Respectfully inscribed to the dear friends
to whom the letters were written,
and by them preserved._
CONTENTS.
LONDON LETTER--April 7, 1882,.....1
Trip on the Atlantic--The Steamer Adriatic--Storm
on the Ocean--Chester--English Cathedrals--To
Liverpool--Chatsworth--Stratford--The 318th Anniversary of
Shakespeare--Oxford--Magdalen College--“Addison’s Walk”--New
College--Sir Joshua Reynolds-Window--At Warwick--Bodlean
Library--Ashmolean Museum--Spofford Brooks and Canon Liddon.
LONDON LETTER--June 11, 1882,.....16
Seeing London--Advantage of being in a great city--The boarding-house,
just for Americans--Windsor Palace--Gray’s grave--Moncure Conway--Canon
Farrar--Bostonians--American Cousins--From London on the way to
Scotland.
FROM LONDON TO EDINBURGH--July 4, 1882,.....22
Four hours at York--The Nuns of St. Leonard’s Hospital--St. Mary’s
Abbey--“The Five Sisters”--New-castle-on-Tyne--Durham--The
Cathedral--St. Cuthbert--The Tomb of Bede--The Legend of Bede--Wandering
minstrels--Scenery on the route--The sunset--A Scotch lady--List of
tourists.
SCOTLAND LETTER--July 21, 1882,.....32
Edinburgh--Holyrood Palace--Castle with relics of Mary Queen of
Scots--Alexander Swift says--Of traveling--Dumfermline--The Abbey of
Robert Bruce--Newbattle Abbey.
HEIDELBERG LETTER--August 16, 1882,.....38
In Heidelberg--The Neckar--The places I have been--Sketches over the
line of travel--The scenes visited from England to Heidelberg.
HEIDELBERG LETTER--September 3, 1882,.....41
Heidelberg; this is home--From Nuremberg--The enchantment and charms of
the old city--The streets, buildings, bridges, churches, museums and
galleries--Masterpieces of Durer, Kraft, Stoss and Vischer--The works of
numerous artists--The lime tree--The lamp that has been lighted since
1326--The crown princess--The Exposition--Going back some day--A day of
rest--Cape Colony English ladies--My traveling companion.
BADEN-BADEN--September 19, 1882,.....44
Heidelberg on the Neckar--The castle, the Jettenbühl--“Das Grosse
Fass”--Mapping out Switzerland--The floods--In the Gardens--The Black
Forest--The Oos--The trees on the banks--To Strassburg.
NUREMBERG--September 27, 1883,.....47
From Heidelberg to Nuremberg--Nuremberg the objective point--Ancestors
back to 1570--Up the Neckar--The scenery--Two historic points--Hotels
full--Grand Exposition--Superb attractions--Old lime tree--Durer’s
monument--The princess and family--A wedding--Traveling alone--German
lady--At Baden--Friedrichsbad--The days at Strassburg.
MUNICH LETTER--September 24, 1882,.....60
Old and New Schloss--Trinkhalle and its waters--The great
Friedrichsbad--Strassburg Cathedral--The wonderful clock--St. Thomas
Church, with monument to Marshal Saxe--The Strassburg specialty,
pâtés-de-fois-gras--The attractive city, Constance--Monastery where
Huss was imprisoned--The place where Jerome suffered sentence--From
Constance to Lindau--The beauty of country and scenery--The Alps
again--Words not equal to doing justice--Innumerable places of
attraction--München, the capital of little Bavaria.
MÜNCHEN LETTER--October 11, 1882,.....64
Visit to royal palace--A woman’s voice in American English--Walks and
drives around München--Looking in the shop windows--Picking up
pictures--Call at the book-store--“The Last Judgment,” largest oil
painting in the world--Other pictures and sketches--Vesper
service--Munich a large city--Neighbors--A Prussian officer.
MUNICH LETTER--November 18, 1882,.....77
Letters, letters, letters--An evening with friends--My husband and early
childhood--Happy days--Dear hills, beautiful hills, sacred
hills--Youthful days--The house where I was born--“The Point”--That
“exuberant set”--Another Mrs. C.--Bavarian officer--Anticipation of
seeing the Alps--A concert--Booth--Letters.
MÜNCHEN LETTER--November 20, 1882,.....87
A homesick heart--The leaf from a tree--Views about the old
homestead--The royal family at church--Royal dames--One of the
princesses, a beautiful woman--The king--The music--The church--My
religion.
MUNICH LETTER--December 12, 1882,.....92
Repetition--Letter of the “altogethery type”--My style--Love, late in
life--Indian summer--“That vale of Aberdeen”--Beautiful old ladies--That
singular death-bed speech--The divine musician--French books--Dutch
reading--The epic, Nibelungenlied--The king’s palace.
MUNICH LETTER--December 22, 1882,.....100
My counterfeit presentment--The crayon portrait--“Paint me as I
am”--About my pictures--The home of my childhood--“The Place of
Roses”--Les Petites Miseres de la vie Conjugale--Christmas coming--What
John did--Christmas, Christmas.
MUNICH LETTER--January 2, 1883,.....105
Preparations for Christmas--Bavaria and its kings--The public
buildings--Music--The house of Wittelsbach dates from 1110--The
Maximilians--The king on his death-bed--The present king, Ludwig II--His
character--His royal palaces--The Gallery of Ancestors--The king a
poet--His refined taste--The king’s spotless reputation--Of the kings.
MÜNCHEN LETTER--January 15, 1883,.....117
Christmas and New Years--The scathingest tongue--Christmas tree--The
Nibelungenlied in German--Church services--German New Year’s Eve--Our
frau’s banquet.
MUNICH LETTER--October 4, 1886,.....126
Of writing letters--Ingenious sophism--The little girl that prayed--The
readable letter with a secret--His age--Miss B----’s letter--A grand
gala day--Sunday the open day--The king--Royal family--Royal
personages--Officers of state--A four o’clock tea.
PARIS LETTER--February 4, 1883,.....134
At last in Paradise--From Munich to Paris--The journey a dream--One’s
own vernacular--View from my private balcony--In sight of the Mackey’s
palace--Grace Greenwood in Paris--What an enchantment to know places by
sight--The street scenes--Vast concourse of seething humanity--The
weather--The flowers.
PARIS LETTER--February 8, 1883,.....137
To begin--Figures--Not writing for fame or filthy lucre--“Two in one
existence”--From Munich to Paris alone--The experience of cold--The
German cars comfortable--Fallen in love--Paris, London and Munich
Compared--Manufactory of the Gobelins--Pompeian palace--Viewing
art--Language--Night--Solitude--To Italy from Paris.
PARIS LETTER--September 1, 1883,.....144
In Paris again after six months--Good intentions--Feminine
interruption--A flash of inspiration--The lion of sandstone carved in a
grotto--Trip to the glaciers--First mule ride--Return from the sublime
spectacle--The descent more difficult than the ascent--English
ladies--From Interlaken to Bern--Lake Leman--The Garden in which Gibbon
wrote the conclusion of his great work--Chillon--Passage to Chamony--All
the way to Geneva--That book--The Pension--The Madame.
PARIS LETTER--January 1, 1884,.....158
Letter--Verses--Christmas Eve--Tree party--My hostess
and myself--Salutatory an impromptu poem--The evening’s
entertainment--Twelfth Night--I shun sleep--“Characteristics”--Sending
the book--A letter from Miss B.--The article on Burns--Finis and
reflections.
PARIS LETTER--April 1, 1884,.....166
Enjoying Paris in fair weather--President Grevy--The numerous
entertainments--There is no hostess--The musical side of Paris--A
pleasant American family--Sunday afternoon concert--The music--The
audience--To the Luxembourg with an American girl.
PARIS LETTER--December 6, 1885,.....169
Letter acknowledged--I am again a wandering star--The
delights of travel--The poor king who lost his head--Thomas a
Becket--Whitehall--Government buildings--Saw Gladstone’s and Salisbury’s
seats--Went to Temple Bar--Old clocks--The cathedral--Vespers at Little
St. Martin’s--Crossed the Channel--Sight-seeing--Cuvier and
Humboldt--Experiences, drives and sights--Pleasant people we met.
PARIS LETTER--December 13, 1886,.....175
Return delayed by storms--Miss B---- came from Sweden--Proposed trip on
the Nile--A line from under old Cheops.
PARIS LETTER--March 8, 1887,.....177
Disappointed about the Jerusalem trip--Contributions from every grand
division--No date for sailing--Ladies from Louisville, Ky.--The title of
the little book--Madame gives a house-warming--Bloom and beauty.
PARIS LETTER--April 26, 1887,.....180
Birthday anniversary--Dispensations of conscientiousness--How the days
go--The sight-seeing never comes to an end--The “Salon” open for the
Annual Exposition--At the Exposition--Numerous pictures--“Theodora,”
Sara Bernhardt’s great character--Two French ladies--The musical
entertainment given me--Paris in the month of May.
PARIS LETTER--May 29, 1887,.....185
The letter and the book--Figures and a woman’s age--Pictures--Millet’s
“L’Angelus”--Subjects and character of paintings--“The little book”--The
drive--Champs Elysées as a fashionable resort--The enchantment of the
scenes--“The little book” again, and again.
VENICE LETTER--June 8, 1883,.....192
The letter in fancy from Florence--No rules from the flight of
imagination--Longfellow says it for me--Venice in June--Drifting about
in a gondola--The Grand Canal--The dazzling glory of the scene--A
trance; a dream; perfect, perfect Venice!--Allusion to a story of
life--A book to come forth--If I am to die to-morrow ...--The ideal
woman and friend--Kentucky gossip--Oh! oh! oh! perfect, perfect Venice!
LUCERNE LETTER--June 26, 1883,.....201
The wooden horse of Donatello--Goethe’s palm tree--From Padua to
Verona--Juliet’s tomb--The house of Capulets--Milan--The
cathedral--Grand Victor Emanuel Gallery--Pictures in galleries--Visit to
libraries--View of levées--Italian lakes and scenes--The tropical
bloom--Nightingale songs--The grand climb up the Alps--The
glaciers--Snow flower, edelweiss--The ruins of castles--The moonlight
scene--The descent from the Alps--The aching heart, like the dying
gladiator.
VIENNA LETTER--October 17, 1883,.....214
No end to the beginning--The opera--Letters--The surface of
things--Below the surface--Knowledge of more breadth--My
hostess--Wagner’s operas--The object of my pilgrimage to Vienna--The
aurist of Europe--The specialist’s quarters--The Imperial Library.
SIENA LETTER--March 4, 1883,.....224
Things we saw on the way--Shrine of Petrarch’s Laura--The Papal
palaces--The frescoes--Musée Calvet--Vernet Gallery and pictures--The
moonlight drive to Marseilles--At Cannes--An English lady--Hotel on the
sea-front--The moonrise out of the sea--Bishop Littlejohn,
of Rhode Island--A tram-drive--Excursion to Monaco and Monte
Carlo--Pisa--Geneva--Mt. Blanc.
ROME LETTER--March 19, 1883,.....231
An Ohioan from Granville--Naples and views--Museums and the palace of
Capodimonte--Picture of Michael Angelo and Vittoria Colonna--Pompeian
frescoes--Vittoria Colonna’s husband--Vesuvius at night--Longfellow’s
poem, “Amalfi”--Paestum--Ideal drive--Museum--Narcissus listening to
Echo--Palm Sunday at St. Peter’s--The Sistine Chapel--Goethe’s
words--Hawthorne’s Rome--The Marble Faun--Springtime--Christmas
flowers--Christmas souvenirs.
ROME LETTER--April 4, 1883,.....238
Scenes along the coast of Italy--Little villages--The
mountains--Monastery of the Capuchins--The macaroni factory--The
monastery and monks--Our Paestum day--Vesuvius before the charmed
gaze--Birthplace of Tasso--Celebrated places--Second trial of
Naples--Trip from Naples to Rome--Ancient Capua--Monte Casino, its
associations--Rome--Palm Sunday--Various services--English lady--Holy
Week--Drive on the Via Appia--The Catacombs and tombs--The grotto--The
tree of Numa’s wisdom.
ROME LETTER--April 24, 1883,.....251
Importance of address in a foreign land--Guercino’s fresco of
Aurora--Scene in Imperial Rome--“Rome mistress of the world”--Story of
Eve--Tasso memorial room--Swarm of lizards--A view of St.
Peter’s--Pompey’s statue--The Plaza--The Jews’ quarters, called
Ghetto--The house of Rienzi--Protestant cemetery--Burial place of Keats
and the heart of Shelley.
ROME LETTER--May 2, 1883,.....261
“While Rome stands, the world stands”--The rounds of churches--The
galleries and museums--Palaces and shops--“Being in Rome, do as Romans
do”--Piazzi di San Giovanni, the largest in existence--One of the
eleven obelisks--Mosaic frescoes--The queen in her carriage--Church of
St. Onafrio, on the Janiculus--The three frescoes by Domenichino and
Leonardo da Vinci--Tasso buried here--Three churches of the
Aventine--Galleries--Artists’ quarters--Our Rodgers and Ives--Their
art--Italian artist--Dwight Benton, formerly of Cincinnati,
Ohio--Italian scenes.
MAIORI LETTER--April 5, 1886,.....274
Apology for delinquent letter--“What a butterfly she is!”--One of the
party sick--On the Mediterranean--Longfellow’s poem--The steep
climb--The poor little donkey--Features of the scene--“The death in
life”--The region abounds in drives--Talk of Sicily and Africa--A
letter--The sacred few ...--The little book--Blessed be the potato,
henceforth and forever!
NAPLES LETTER--May 1, 1886,.....281
A drive to Salerno--From there to Paestum--The temple of Neptune--An
incident of missing glasses--Return to Salerno--Then to
Pompeii--Naples--Friends from Tunis--A steamer for Sicily--Storm at
sea--Palermo, its environs--The palaces--The drives and places we
visited--The museum, Metopes, and splendid art--Beauty of the
country--The fountain of Arethusa--Roman amphitheater--The quarries--Mt.
Etna--The seven rocks of Cyclops--Messina--That coat of arms of
Sicily--The heart-ache of good-byes.
LAUTERBRUNNEN LETTER--July 29, 1886,.....291
Wrought up over letters--“Poaching on your preserves”--The cause of
wit--Friends, their character estimated--Of writing--Sojourn in the
beautiful valley--The Staubach--The Jungfrau.
EGYPT LETTER--December 30, 1886,.....295
Aboard steamer Prince Abbas--On the Nile--“In the teeth of a
storm”--Sunrise and sunset on the Mediterranean--Acquaintances, a
citizen from the “hub”--At Alexandria--The seven wonders--To
Cairo--English officers--The Pyramids--Pillars at Heliopolis--“The
Virgin’s tree”--The island of Rhodda--Mosques and tombs--The site of
Memphis--“Twelve miles of wonderland”--The air--The flowers--The guests
on steamer--One can live too much in books.
EGYPT LETTER FROM PARIS--February 10, 1887,.....302
Agreeable surprises--Down the Nile--The atmosphere and mysterious
influence of scene--Landing of steamer--Our donkey ride--The
tombs--The imposing magnificence of the monuments--Rain in
Egypt--Reflections--Pictures to help tell the story--The coming book.
CUBA LETTER--April 7, 1885,.....307
The magical isle of Cuba--Tropical vegetation--Sunrise in the harbor of
Havana--The trip on the steamer--Moro Castle--Strange scene on
landing--The buildings--The drive, atmosphere and scenery--The watch
incident--Shopping expedition--People we met--To Cerro--Sugar
plantations and process of sugar-making--The caves--The beautiful
island, Cuba--The freedom of slaves--Spanish government.
A VISION OF FATIGUE,.....322
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
Shakespeare’s Birthplace, from below, Stratford, 11
Room in Shakespeare’s Home, Stratford, 12
Mary, Queen of Scots, Edinburgh, 32
Pension and Garden to which Goethe wrote a
Poem, Heidelberg, 38
The Old Kaiser at Historical Window, 71
Louis II, the Mad King of Bavaria, 90
Queen Louise, 126
The Historic Windmill, 131
The Old Lion, Lucerne, 147
The Old Lion at the Arsenal, Venice, 192
Lord Byron’s Palace, Venice, 196
Pantheon, Rome, 242
Strada dei Sepolcri (Street of Tombs), Pompeii, 248
Quirinal, Rome, 259
Naples, General View, 281
Peasant Cart, Palermo, 283
Interior of Museum, Palermo, 285
Archimedes, 288
Head of Medusa, Palermo, 290
LETTER FROM ENGLAND.
Where to begin? That is the question. The ideas, thoughts, feelings,
come, not in battalions, but like the hosts of Alexander, or our own, in
“the late unpleasantness,” or like the bubbles in the foam on the crests
of the waves “a moment here, then gone forever.” I am wishing for the
arms of Briareus, with their hundred hands, to help catch and fix them
on the page. Such a trip! The Atlantic was never known to exhibit such a
peculiar turbulence of waves and water generally. The steamer Adriatic
(in which we sailed April 6th) kept up such a lurching and pitching as I
never had an idea of before. One day it was impossible for me to keep my
feet, and after trying in vain to dress in the morning, I retired to my
berth. But it was as much as the sailors could do to keep their feet,
and three were badly hurt. How my friends would have laughed, could they
have seen my frantic struggles to accomplish a toilette. The two
“steamer trunks” and our hand satchels were chasing each other all
around me, and knocking wildly from one side to the other, and I in the
midst, shooting and slipping, clutching and grabbing, wildly,
frantically, at doors, berth and washstand. But I was so glad not to be
seasick, I didn’t mind anything else much.
One spectacle of this turbulence in the “r-r-r-rolling forties,” as the
chambermaid called our bearing (I wish I could give that whirr of her r
s), was of peculiar and extraordinary sublimity and uniqueness. It kept
me at my porthole for I know not how long. The steamer was sweeping
right along in an immense hollow, or crater as it were, in the ocean,
and in which was comparative calm. Afar off the water rose in encircling
ranges of vast mountains--“Alps upon Alps”--capped with white foam. From
these snowy cones, like the eruptions of volcanoes, burst forth in swift
succession great columns of the seething mass that shot upward
apparently to the very heavens and exploded.
I did not know at the time that this was unusual, but in speaking of it
afterwards found it had not been observed by the other passengers--all
or the most of whom were seasick--nor have I since met with any traveler
who had ever seen it; nor read any description of it.
We had a lovely Easter Sunday on the broad Atlantic. The captain
presented me with two Easter eggs prepared expressly for me as a
testimonial of my good seamanship. I was never seasick. The device was a
white star and the name of the steamer--Adriatic. I was the only lady
thus honored. We had a pleasant company: R. H. Dana and his wife (a
daughter of Longfellow), two charming ladies, relatives of Longfellow, a
Unitarian minister and his young sister, all from Boston; and a Mrs.
Blake, from Canada. These were the parties we saw the most of, except
Mrs. Dana, who was not well. Mr. Dana was one of the most attractive and
interesting persons I ever met, the kind that has the effect of a flash
of sunlight coming into a room. One of the ladies was a Unitarian, and
that brought us together. The minister was going to attend a Unitarian
conference of the English Unitarian Church, which met at Liverpool,
April 18th. She and I constituted ourselves delegates at large, and
decided to attend. We landed Sunday, the 16th, remained till afternoon,
attending church at an old cathedral of some note; then lunching at the
Northwestern Hotel, and away we came to Chester.
How much do you know about Chester? I’ll take for granted all its
history. The “old cathedral city” and the “old walled city” is the way
the guide-books speak of it. I walked its two miles of wall,
well-preserved, picturesque, and commanding lovely views. I mounted one
of the towers on it, called King Charles the First’s, because from it he
watched the fatal progress of the battle of Rowton Moor. I looked out of
the very queer little windows from which he watched. The old woman who
shows it is as bright and keen of tongue, if not as incisive, as Mrs.
Poyser. She said she liked Americans, and always enjoyed their visits,
and that they paid her every year a most extraordinary honor. “Just
think of a whole country celebrating your birthday! Wouldn’t you feel
honored? That’s what you Americans do.” She said it with mischievous,
snapping eyes. Of course I took in in a moment that the Fourth of July
was her birthday. “Ah,” I replied, “and to think of fifty millions of
people doing all that honor, and not knowing what they are doing.”
“Fifty millions of people!” She came right up to me, and her look
changed to amazement--“what a grand country it must be!” I told her it
was too bad her name was unknown, and she must give it to me. “Mary
Huxley.” I said,
“Why, Mary Huxley, you’ve a very good name,
And I’m sure I think it a crying shame
That it is not better known to fame.”
You ought to have seen her delight. She talked to me down to the very
last step, after giving me “a hearty grip” by way of good-bye.
Then I saw Chester Cathedral, where Hugh Lupus, nephew of William the
Conqueror, is buried. On Sunday night, some of us attended service
there, after which there was an organ recital, a very fine performance.
Next morning, all five of us went down into the dark, damp, crypts. The
amount of exquisite carving in it is something wonderful. I am not going
into the age and size of it and all that. Go to the library and get a
book on English Cathedrals and Cathedral Towns and read, and think that
that is what your correspondent is seeing. Another one is St. John’s
Church, still more ancient, with its abbey, a lovely ivy-covered ruin. I
could not bear to leave it. Another feature is the old castle now used
as an armory and barracks. The hands of the Romans have left many
evidences of their work here in the wall, the columns still standing in
place of some kinds of fortifications. The old town is full of queer
things, and has a weird sort of fascination; among these “the Rows,” a
succession of arcades built on the roofs of ancient triangular-shaped
houses. The handsomest shops are in them. The neighborhood has the honor
of containing Eaton Hall, the seat of the Duke of Westminster. We
visited it, driving and walking all over its splendid walks, and
gardens, and lawns, and parks, and getting a first-rate look into the
palace. We could not go inside, because it was full of workmen finishing
the inside ornamentation. The grounds are ten square miles in extent.
There were immense conservatories, full of the rarest flowers and
plants. In one I saw the Egyptian lotus floating in full bloom in an
immense tank. The head gardener was our guide. He was a very intelligent
person, well-mannered and pleasant and clever, because he gave me a
handful of flowers and broke off a nice little branch from a cedar of
Lebanon, brought from the Holy Land expressly for the place. He gave us
a great deal of information about the family; among other things he told
me the Duke was not handsome, but a good man. He spoke with emphasis.
The Dee winds through those miles of acres and is spanned by a number of
bridges. The villages of the tenantry are pretty and looked
comfortable. I saw deer by hundreds in the park. We returned to
Liverpool, and remained two days in attendance on the conference. A
number of the leading men were there, and we heard them speak and
preach. There were Armstrong, Carpenter, Sir Thomas Hayward and others.
They were fine-looking men, and extremely interesting. The audience was
as enthusiastic and demonstrative as that of our Methodist Conferences.
From Liverpool we whisked away to Rowsley Station, Derbyshire, to the
Peacock Inn, the quaintest manor-house, now doing duty according to its
name. The object of this was to visit Chatsworth, the seat of the Duke
of Devonshire, and Haddon Hall, a lovely unused ruin, belonging to the
Duke of Rutland. The country in every direction was a vision of
beauty--a sea of living green--bespangled with flowers as thickly as the
floor of heaven is inlaid with stars; or in Derbyshire, breaking up into
great cliffs, showing the beautiful stone which is so generally used in
building. The grounds of the inn were washed by the Derwent, a winding
stream of exceeding beauty.
We made an early start in a wagonette for Chatsworth. It was an ideal
day--the Spring in full burst, with that delicate film of blue mist
that always makes me think of a veil, to enhance its charms--the whole
way a succession of pictures--vales, swelling uplands, far hills, the
Derwent in its curious curves. We were speechless and exclamatory by
turns.
Chatsworth is a palace, in the midst of its thousands of acres
cultivated and adorned in every possible way; its exquisite lawn laid
out in innumerable gardens in Italian, Alpine, German, French, and ever
so many other styles; its wonderful conservatory designed by Sir Joshua
Paxton, who modeled the Crystal Palace on the same plan, as you no doubt
know; and the gorgeousness of the long suite of show rooms. The rooms of
course are filled with all that the money and taste of its long
generations have accumulated--the rooms in themselves, for their noble
dimensions, rich, tasteful and expensive finish; and their lovely views
of stream, lakes, meadows, forests, and lovely distances. I saw the
hangings of a state bedstead worked by Mary Queen of Scots, and the
Countess of Shrewsbury; the rosary of Henry the Eighth; and some
portraits of the beautiful duchesses that have distinguished the house
(though not Georgiana); and some splendid pieces of statuary. I shall
never forget Canova’s Endymion, and Thorwalsden’s Venus. The guide went
round the grounds by my side and proved himself a most agreeable
fellow--telling me all the family gossip I cared to know. I dare not
attempt to get it all in here, though I’ve a misgiving you’d rather hear
it than all the rest. I may as well tell you that I always keep close to
the guide and--it pays. They are always the head, or one of the
gardeners, and are a constant astonishment to me for their good manners,
choice language, as well as their intelligence.
I asked if the heir, the Marquis of Hartington (leader in the House of
Commons), was handsome; he laughed merrily, shaking his head, “No
indeed, he is very plain, and you just ought to see him slouch around
here. This is the way he walks”--and he gave an illustration to my
infinite amusement. Only he and I were together, the rest were lagging a
wide interval behind.
The deer park has two thousand acres and eight hundred head of deer. We
saw several different herds of one hundred each, perhaps two hundred.
Next by a short drive, to Haddon Hall on a hill overlooking as fair a
scene as eye would care to dwell on. A soft drab stone, time-stained and
worn, moss and ivy covered, it is an immense pile built around a
quadrangular court, with its ancient rooms sufficiently well-preserved
to show in what state it was kept away back in that romantic age. The
grand banqueting hall, with antlers for ornaments, its old table in the
upper end, with the same old benches, both worm-eaten; besides this the
dining hall for daily use, wainscoted to the ceiling in heavy, dark oak
panels, and a great round table; the drawing-room with its arras,
hangings said to be of the fourteenth century, the bed-rooms hung in the
same way; the dancing saloon one hundred and ten by seventeen feet wide,
with its grand stained windows, and a bust of one of the countesses
taken after her death. I went up Percival tower and stood on it looking
down into the “inner court” (the quadrangle) and off over the landscape,
and trying to imagine “the olden time.” There is a door opening on to an
avenue of yews with a terrace and steps into a walled flower garden with
a postern gate in the wall, outside which are steps leading to a bridge
across the moat beyond which lies an expanse of open meadow, and a
pretty story
[Illustration: Shakespeare’s Birthplace, from below, Stratford.]
says the loveliest daughter of the house stole out this way to “off and
away,” with her “young Lochinvar,” he and his steed awaiting her at the
hither side of the bridge. The little boy who opened the postern for us,
said in answer to us: “This is the gate, and them’s the steps, and that
are the bridge she crossed to the ’oss.”
From the Peacock next a. m. to Stratford-on-Avon! Next day was Sunday,
and the birthday of Shakespeare. Think of my spending it at his
birthplace! It is almost too much to realize. The first afternoon we
walked to see his birthhouse (just the outside), the hall where
Garrick’s present stands, and the bridge over the Avon from which is a
pretty view of the church where he lies. The morning found us all fresh
and ready for church. There was fine music and a full congregation. You
know the whole service is intoned in the English Church. When the vicar
went to his desk for that I dreaded to hear a word, fearing it would not
be in harmony with the day. It proved to be the best sermon I ever heard
from the Episcopal pulpit, indeed an inspiration. After the congregation
was dismissed we asked permission to enter the chancel to see the grave,
and I had a collection of the flowers he knew so well to lay upon it.
It was “against rule” to let any one in at that hour, but the vicar
instantly and courteously accorded us this as soon as he knew we were
Americans. I knelt and laid the flowers by the inscription. The “painted
bust” is just above the grave. I did not like it. It looked both beefy
and beery. Too much so for my ideal of him who the vicar had just said
“was the greatest poet and perhaps the greatest being that ever lived.”
It was the 318th anniversary. No wonder he chose “Trinity” for his last
resting-place. It is a beautiful situation on the Avon, and from the
street you walk up a long avenue of lime trees, on either side of which
are the graves of centuries. We stayed three days at Stratford, and
to-morrow we go, as the great Cardinal went, “by easy roads to
Leicester;” we are going to London.
May 1st. We came here Saturday, after such a two days in that “ancient
university city,” Oxford, as I hope most fervently I shall repeat in
extenso. It was from one extreme enjoyment to something beyond! I
stepped into the university founded by Alfred the Great, a huge mass of
time-stained and somewhat crumbling marble. I went through Christ
College, first into the kitchen. “The very best time you could
[Illustration: Room in Shakespeare’s Home, Stratford.]
have come,” said the usher. Dinner was in full progress! The room is a
cube of forty feet. Such a baronial banquet preparation I never saw. The
oldest relic is the door leading into the court, where the fuel is kept,
heavy, black, battered, iron-bound oak. From the kitchen to the
refectory, with its splendid array of pictures. Going out under the
tower, we heard “old Tom” ring out the hour in his sonorous tones. To
Magdalen College to see the chapel with its wonderful immense window in
brown sepia, three hundred years old, representing the day of judgment,
and its reredos extending from the floor to the ceiling and from side
wall to side wall. Then to “Addison’s Walk,” the loveliest, most
sequestered, serpentine, and then long great vista of greenery, bound on
either side by lovely streams and wide meadows edged with pollard
willows. To New College, with its rival chapel and great window,
designed by Sir Joshua Reynolds, representing Faith, Hope, and all the
virtues mentionable. Anything more exquisite than Hope was never
fashioned by man. The window is made, it is said, of the finest stained
glass in the world. We passed by the church where Amy Robsart lies. At
Warwick we saw the magnificent tomb of her cruel earl, and the effigy of
himself and third wife, carved and colored, reposing thereupon. On to
the Bodleian Library, with its treasures of books, rare old manuscripts,
ancient illuminated works; I can’t enumerate its treasures, but one of
the most curious and interesting was some papyrus rolls from
Herculaneum, showing the scorch. Its picture gallery was a perfect
fascination, with its portraits and busts of a long array of historical
persons whom we have admired, reverenced, loved, and hated, all our
lives. It was all an aggravating rush from one thing to another, that
one wanted to hang over and study and steep the whole being in. I would
go to the Ashmolean Museum to see a few things--Alfred’s jewel, a
priceless treasure, the chatelaine watch of Queen Elizabeth, in
turquoise and gold, with the chain formed of charms in different
devices--two of hair. I wondered if either was her own. Cromwell’s watch
right beside hers, heavy, thick, not very large, but looking as if it
was meant to stand all the battering of the man’s career. One of the
most interesting of all the personal trifles--shall I call them?--was a
kind of charm worn by John Hampden in the civil war. This was the motto:
“Against my king I do not fight,
But for my king and kingdom’s right.”
There is not a spot in Oxford that is not enchanting. We staid at the
“Mitre Hotel,” the oldest house in the city. Our room was wainscoted to
the ceiling, which was divided into three compartments by rich and
pretty panels in rich flowers. I did not like to leave it, though
walking its floors was a feat of dexterity worthy of being chronicled,
they were so sunken and irregular. We came whizzing through the
loveliest lowland country, saw Windsor in a misty veil of light rain,
and all at once we were in Paddington Station, in the cab, rolling
through London streets and directly at our boarding house. We are
delightfully situated. Sunday morning we heard Spofford Brooks. He is
just across the street. In the afternoon I went to St. Paul’s to hear
Canon Liddon. I was all eyes, if not ears. That splendid pile swallowed
me up, mind, body and soul. And now with the din and clatter of four
female tongues sounding in my ears, I will close this rambling epistle.
L. G. C.
Grosvenor Hotel, Chester, April 17, 1882.
LETTER FROM LONDON.
I am still in this grandest city of the globe. Every day seems a fresh
era in life, each hour ushers in new and more delightful experiences. I
am confirmed in my opinion that this “little island,” but mighty kingdom
of the earth, is to be more to me than all the rest, and that my plan to
spend “the season” in London was the very best I could have had. Indeed
that was the one feature of this trip entirely clear to me. For the
rest, I had a general outline to make headquarters of each of the great
art centers, and let the gods provide the goods. No doubt I shall adhere
to this in a way. Governor Chamberlain, who was here last year in
August, said he could not have believed it would make such a difference
to be here “in the season.” I think you know the months of May, June and
July constitute that elect time. Well, I have had as perfect a time as
one could have in my way. Of course, there is that other--that means
being presented at court, and getting into society, the first being the
easier of the two! I have not hankered after either. There are some whom
I have long admired, it would be a beatitude to know, such as the Earl
of Shaftsbury, now eighty-one, whose whole life has been devoted to good
and noble works (just last Tuesday he presided at the opening of a
bazaar in behalf of a benevolent project), and the Duke of Devonshire
and his family, Gladstone, John Bright and _such_. Alas! “they are a
pitch beyond my flight,” and so I am content to let all go. What I have
drunk deep of is the great institutions--churches, galleries, the Tower,
Parliament houses, hospitals, etc.
The boarding house in which we are is kept by English people, just for
Americans, and foreigners. English people do not board; it is not “good
form” with them. The host, a very intelligent, affable gentleman, and
his wife, a bright, kind, out-spoken lady, say “they have known no
Americans that have seen London to such advantage.” They evidently
regard us with great respect.
Tuesday was a glorious day. We spent it at Windsor, were all over the
palace shown to the public, on the terrace, saw the gorgeous Albert
Mausoleum, and St. George’s Chapel with its exquisite monument to
Princess Charlotte, the most perfect piece of sculpture I ever saw, and
also the touching monument to the Prince Imperial, with his recumbent
statue on it, a good likeness in pure white marble. It seems to me quite
probable, since seeing it, that Princess Beatrice may have been in love
with him. From Windsor we drove through Eaton and a beautiful English
lane to Stoke Pogis to see Gray’s grave and the church and graveyard of
the “Elegy.” The little church is the most exquisite little gem I ever
saw. I wish I dared give you a full description of that day, but it
would take a ream of paper.
Well, this is Sunday evening. I went to hear Moncure Conway this
forenoon at his own chapel. I was so much interested, more than I have
been by any one I have heard but Canon Farrar. You may have heard him
when he preached in Cincinnati. You may not agree with or approve of his
views, but one cannot help being greatly interested and instructed. He
has a scholarly look--the bowed head, that trick caught by bending
constantly over books and writing, and a lively, expressive countenance,
the kind that shows the effect of constant association with high
thoughts and noble sentiments and lofty aspirations. He is in the best
sense a teacher. I saw Mr. and Mrs. Taft there, and my friend Miss ----
cried out, “Don’t you want to go back and speak to them?” As we were in
our carriage, and it was raining, I concluded to forego the pleasure.
They are on their way to Vienna. It is rather pleasant to know so many
Americans are around, even if you don’t get to speak to them. We have a
fresh supply of Bostonians. They are all chattering round the fire like
so many daws--my _companions du voyage_ helping their level best. They
come and go, come and go, all the time. We often find ourselves laughing
at large parties--“Oh! look quick; there they are, another lot of our
country-fellows.” They go about in gangs and everybody seems to
recognize them at once as “Americans.” I can’t tell how they, the
English, know us; but it is very easy for us to distinguish them. Their
voices and _pronunciation_ are very markedly different. All have a kind
of abdominal pitch and intoning that are very pronounced.
I have found some relatives here, people who settled in England two
hundred years ago, when my branch of the family emigrated from Holland
to America. They are as purely English as I am American, and this is the
first meeting since the original separation. One of my newly-found
cousins is in the Somerset House, where he has a government office, and
he _would_ show us “what it contained of interest.” It is a government
building, registering marriages, births, deaths, keeping records, etc.
The way he made us skip round and up and down and through long corridors
in upper stories, and deep down in almost the bowels of the earth, was
good for our circulation if not for our feet. It was just going through
a vast library, for all these things are kept in volumes bound in Russia
leather and shelved and catalogued. He invited us for Tuesday evening to
meet a party of relatives and special friends he wished me to know; so I
am counting on something of an introduction to English life. Thereby is
a romance, our meeting, etc.; but of this another time.
Well, our time is up, and on Wednesday I have arranged to leave for our
Scottish tour. This takes up the eastern side of England, through York
and Durham to Edinburgh, where we shall spend a week. Thence through the
Tromcho[A] and lakes, Caledonia canal, Inverness and back to “Auld
Reekie,” where we shall excursion to Abbotsford, Jedburg, and next
Glasgow and Ayr, and down through western England by the English
lakes--Windermere, Coniston, etc., back to London. We may go to Wales,
or leave that out for the present and go to the Isle of Wight, and so
across the Channel to some place in Brittany or Normandy, where we have
“booked” ourselves for a month.
L. G. C.
London, June 11, 1882.
[Illustration]
FROM LONDON TO EDINBURGH.
We left London on the morning of the 14th, after a seven weeks’ sojourn,
and, I must say it, one of perfect delight and satisfaction. Old
Londoners could not remember a more charming “season;” the weather
called forth rapturous comments, the city was full of attractions, the
best and at their best, a most fortunate conjunction; and “all the
world” seemed peopling its palaces, crowding its hotels, thronging its
temples of art and pleasure, and pushing its way through the packed
streets, to enjoy them. Believe me, it took a stout wrench to break away
from all that. But as we said to our hostess in response to her amiable
urgency to detain us yet longer, “Dear Madam, how shall we ‘see the
world,’ unless we ‘move on’?”
A four hours’ railway ride brought us to York, where we “stopped over”
till next afternoon to see the Minster, the walls and the ruins of St.
Leonard’s Hospital and St. Mary’s Abbey, and the ancient city “in
toto.” The sun shone for us in most lavish brilliancy, and we went after
lunch to the Cathedral, spending an hour or more wandering “through it
with the verger all to ourselves” (which we always account a peculiarly
good piece of luck, as much interesting information is to be gained,
when he can give you undivided attention).
We stood long before each of the great windows, too rapt in admiration,
it must be confessed, to give due heed to the great budget of details
our guide was so kindly pouring out for our benefit. The “Five Sisters”
was the first that arrested us, consisting of five lancet-shaped lights,
fifty-four feet high by thirty wide. It was presented by five maiden
sisters, who worked the patterns first. They must have had a busy time
of it, and I am glad I was not one of them, but am one who has had the
privilege of enjoying their pious handiwork. Next the west and east
windows, the first about the size of the “Five Sisters,” the latter said
to be the largest in the world. As to the exquisite beauty of each, that
is unutterable. We lingered and loitered in nave and choir and transept,
till long after the sun had set, and then walked back to our hotel, a
palace fit for any queen this world has ever throned; the views from
its great French plate glass windows Victoria might be glad to claim.
The next morning we attended choral service, and gave the entire
forenoon to that splendid seat of Episcopal magnificence. From there we
went to the ruins, both being in the same inclosure, a large tract laid
out in beautiful walks and far-stretching expanses of lawn, with clumps
of trees here and there, and beds and borders of flowers. I wish I had
time to tell you how old these crumbling structures are, and the various
fortunes to which they have been subjected. Suffice it that both are
older than the time of the Conqueror, which surely would seem ancient
enough.
In the afternoon we were most reluctant to “stick to our program,” and
go on to Durham, but we did. We had a reminder of home on the way in an
hour’s stop at Newcastle-on-Tyne--as coal begrimed as Pittsburgh. I was
glad to leave it behind, and find fresh, clean air coming into my lungs
as it vanished from my sight. We ran into Durham in good time for a
climb to its Cathedral, “unequaled in situation on a high hill.” Again
we had a verger all to ourselves, and he proved a fellow with some wit,
with all his overwhelming “stock in trade” of cathedral knowledge in
architecture.
I was so hoarse I could only croak, but too athirst for knowledge to let
that hinder. So, as I said something to this effect, “Tell me about
that--the book I have does not tell anything, though I got the best I
could find”--with the most mischievous smile he burst out, “I think you
got something worse, haven’t you?” We were fast friends from that moment
till I bowed “good-bye” next day--crossing his willing hand with the
inevitable silver shilling. You have read all about this cathedral; that
it is a splendid example of Norman, early English, transitional, and
perpendicular styles in its different parts; that St. Cuthbert is its
patron saint, and his bones rest here; maybe, remember how his monks
“From sea to sea, from shore to shore,
Seven years Saint Cuthbert bore.
And after many wanderings past,
He chose his lordly seat at last,
Where his cathedral huge and vast
Looks down upon the weir;
There deep in Durham’s gothic shade
His reliques are in secret laid,
But none may know the place.”
That was long ago, and now even I “know the place.” I stood upon the
flagstones that covered it! Bede is buried there, so I have to tell you
that I leaned upon his tombstone and read the inscription:
“Hac sunt in fossa Bedae venerabilis ossa,”
and recalled the story of the monk’s worry over his hexameter, his lucky
nap, and the opportune help of that convenient angel, who fixed it up
“all right” while he slept the sleep of the righteous. I saw the carved
image of the Dun Cow, from which it got its name. I am not so sure that
legend is so familiar to you. It took hard work, innumerable questions,
search and research, for me to get hold of it, quaint and simple as it
is. In that seven years’ quest for a resting-place for the corpse, the
monks had stopped with it at a place called Ward Law, from which they
could not move it, it seeming fastened to the ground. This set them all
praying to know where they should take it. The answer to their prayer
was, “Dunholme” (Durham). As they were searching about in great
perplexity, they heard a woman, who was looking for her stray cow, call
to her neighbor, asking if she had seen it. The cry back was: “She is at
Dunholme.” Behold! this quest was ended. And the cow is a beauty of the
kind that makes one wish she could be driven home into his own pasture,
to be “a possession forever.” She stands sleek and serene in her niche
in the outer wall, and seems to follow you with a watchful gaze as you
pluck buttercups and clover-blooms, lineal descendants, beyond a doubt,
of those on which her prototype fed in the spacious close beneath her.
We tarried atop that green hill and in those sacred precincts, till the
fainter day that is far from twilight, though the sun is long gone,
warned us of the late hour. Such an evening as we had in ancient
Durham--“a dirty hole in general,” as a little Scotch boy wrote of it in
1820. And a little American woman verifies it to-day. First, a street
concert by Highlanders in full national costume, with their screeching
bagpipes. They ended and vanished. Then came trooping by a large body of
the Salvation Army, with their leader, a woman, facing her forces and
keeping time with a stick to their singing. She looked like a wild
creature, and the spectacle was one more conducive to speculation than
to admiration. As their frantic strains died away in the distance, a
sweet, clear-ringing child voice burst forth. It soared up to us like a
lark,
“_Singing as it soars and soaring as it sings._”
We opened our windows and saw a young boy standing in the street alone
and without any instrument, singing with an absorption that made him
oblivious to his surroundings. He did not even notice the fall of the
pennies for which he was singing, till a woman, who had stopped to hear
him, gathered them up and put them into his hands.