(_EXTRACTS FROM THE DIARY OF A LOVER OF THE BEAUTIFUL._)
_First Extract_.--Really an excellent notion to buy an estate, instead
of picking up what Mr. RUDYARD KIPLING calls a "smeared thing." Got
one, too, pretty cheap. Twenty miles from a railway station, but so
much the better. RUSKIN hates railway stations, and so do I. Never can
make them look picturesque. The Agent tells me my place is famous for
its sunsets; also good moonlight effects on occasions. Pretty village,
too, in the background. Altogether, most satisfactory. After all,
Nature is much better than Art.
_Second Extract_.--Dullerton-on-the-Slush is a charming spot, but
it has its drawbacks. Pretty, but damp. Fog interferes a good deal
with the sunsets, and hides the moon at the wrong moment. Village
deliciously out of repair. But tenants unreasonable. Offered to put up
some red brick roofs for them, which would have looked charming, but
they insist upon having slates. Wish they would consent to having
a few cows in the fields, but they say they prefer pigstyes. Have
consulted a builder and a gardener, and they think that they could
"run up" a stye between them, and cover it over with shrubs. Tenants
object. They say the pigs would not like it, and might eat the shrubs
with fatal results. All this annoying, but still the view from my
dining-room window charming. It reminds me not a little of CONSTABLE,
LINNELL, not to say Old CROME.
_Third Extract_.--Further troubles. Tenants are really very
disagreeable, and they have no feeling for Art. They have cut down
a lot of ornamental trees, and they won't grow the right sort of
crops,--I mean from a picturesque point of view. As agriculturists
they may be all right, but that's not my point. I did not buy the
estate to try how "roots" would thrive. Then they will burn weeds,
and hang out clothes to dry--clothes without any regard to contrast
of colour. Eyesores meet me everywhere. I am really not sure whether I
acted wisely in trusting to a House-agent instead of a Picture-dealer.
"Pictures by Nature" are not as reliable as they should be.
_Fourth Extract_.--This is really too bad! A perambulating Circus
has pitched its tent on the Village Green! When I say tent, I make a
mistake; it is a beastly ugly iron thing, that looks simply hideous,
and from the durable stoutness of its construction, it evidently is
going to be a fixture for some time. My tenants support the Circus
people, and my Agent tells me, that if I interfere, my life will be
made a burden to me. It appears my tenants are "a very unruly lot when
they are irritated." Pleasant!
_Fifth Extract_.--The Circus won't go. And now I find I can't get any
of my rents. My agent tells me, that my tenants never would settle
with their last landlord. Besides, they expect me to pay for the
damage done to their dwellings by the floods. They say it was my
fault, because I would put up a bank and plantation in my back garden.
Only light in the general gloom is, the prospect my Agent holds out
to me of getting rid of the property for me to another lover of the
picturesque. Scarcely fair; but after all, or rather before all, must
take care of Number One.
_Last Extract_.--Hurray! Sold my estate to another fellow. However, on
looking over my accounts, I fancy I should have found it cheaper if,
in the first instance, I had bought a chromo lithograph!
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EPITAPH.--An Alpining Traveller sends us, on the "Bär" Hotel lately
destroyed at Grindelwald, the following adapted and reversified
quotation:--
"Good-bye to the Bär--
And it's moaning" we are!
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[Illustration: "SUMMER VOLUPTAS."
_Toby_ (_sings_). "MY BARQUE IS ON THE SEA!"]
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