"I will go and write a few lines of a letter to my dear Aunt Mary."
"Oh! why should you write now, my dear? You have nothing new to tell
her."
"Nothing new, but I love her, and wish to write to her; if I did not
love her, I should be worse than Caliban."
"Well, write only a few lines."
"That is just what I mean to do, and go on with my letter at any odd
place where we _stop the night._"
You have heard of all we saw at Howth, so I go on from Holyhead.
Breakfasted in company with Mr. Grainger: he has lived in very good
company abroad, and told us a variety of entertaining anecdotes:
Caulaincourt, now Due de Vincennes, was brought up in the family of the
Prince de Condé, _l'enfant de la Maison_, the playfellow of the Due
d'Enghien. Buonaparte employed Caulaincourt to seize the Due d'Enghien;
the wretch did so, and has been repaid by a dukedom.
We asked how the present Empress was liked in France. "Not at all by the
Parisians; she is too haughty, has the Austrian scornful lip, and sits
back in her carriage when she goes through the streets." The same
complaint was made against Marie Antoinette. On what small things the
popularity of the high and mighty depends!
Josephine is living very happily, amusing herself with her gardens and
her shrubberies. This _ci-devant_ Empress and Kennedy and Co., the
seedsmen, are, as Mr. Grainger says, in partnership; she has a licence
to send to him what shrubs and seeds she chooses from France, and he has
licence to send cargoes in return to her. Mr. Grainger will carry over
my box to Madame Recamier.
At the inn door at Bangor Ferry we saw a most curiously packed curricle,
with all manner of portmanteaus and hat-boxes slung in various ingenious
ways, and behind the springs two baskets, the size and shape of Lady
Elizabeth Pakenham's basket. A huge bunch of white feathers was sticking
out from one end of one of these baskets; and as we approached to
examine it, out came the live head of a white peacock--a Japan peacock
and peahen. The gentleman to whom the carriage belonged appeared next,
carrying on a perch a fine large macaw. This perch was made to fasten
behind the carriage. The servant who was harnessing the horses would not
tell to whom the carriage belonged. He replied to all inquiries, "It
belongs to that there gentleman."
We have enjoyed this fine day: had a delightful walk before dinner in a
hanging wood by the water-side--pretty sheep-paths, wood anemonies in
abundance, with their white flowers in full blow. Two ploughs going in
the field below the wood: very cheerful the sound of the Welshmen's
voices talking to their horses. The ploughing, giving the idea of
culture and civilisation, contrasted agreeably with the wildness of the
wood and mountains. Good-night.
_Thursday._
This morning we set out for the slate quarries; we took our time, full
time to see everything at leisure. The railways are above six miles
long; they are very narrow. I had formed an idea of their being much
more magnificent, but in this country canals and railways are made as
useful and as little splendid as possible. I was surprised to see these
railways winding round the rocks, and going over heaps of rubbish where
you would think no wheelbarrow even could go.
From the slate-cutting we went to the slate quarries. We had been
admiring the beauty of the landscape. My father did not say anything to
raise my expectations, but when we arrived near the place, he took me by
the hand, and led me over a heap of rubbish, on the top of which there
was a railway. We walked on until we came between two slate mountains,
and found ourselves in the midst of the quarries. It was the most
sublime sight of all the works of man I ever beheld. The men looked like
pigmies. There is a curious cone of grayish-coloured slate standing
alone, which the workmen say is good for nothing; but it is good for its
picturesque appearance. A heavy shower of hail came on, which, falling
between the rifts of the rocks, and blown by the high wind, added to the
sublimity of the scene: we were comfortably sheltered in one of the
sheds.
Finding that Mr. Worthington was at Liverpool, my father determined to
go there, and we have come on to Conway. During a storm of wind,
thunder, and lightning last night it snowed just enough to cover the
tops of the mountains with white, to increase the beauty of the prospect
for us: they appeared more majestic from the strong contrast of bright
lights and broad shades: the leaves of the honeysuckles all green in the
hedges, fine hollies, primroses in abundance: it was literally spring in
the lap of winter. Penmanmawr has, my father says, considerably altered
its appearance, since he knew it first, from the falling of masses of
rock, and the crumbling away of the mighty substance. Cultivation has
crept up its sides to a prodigious height. A little cottage nestled just
under the mountain's huge stone cap. The fragments of rock that have
rolled down, some of them across the road, are ten times the size of the
rock in Mr. Keating's lawn, [Footnote: A curious isolated stone, about
ten feet by four, which stood in the Vicarage lawn at Edgeworthstown,
said to have been aimed at the church by a Pagan giant from the Hill of
Ardagh. It is now destroyed.] and in contrast with this idea of danger
are sheep and lambs feeding quietly; the lambs looking not larger than
little Francis's deceased kittens Muff and Tippet.
We reached Conway at six o'clock. The landlady of the Harp Inn knew my
father, and recollected Lovell and my Aunt Ruxton. The boy to whom
Lovell used to be so good, and who stopped my father on Penmanmawr to
tell him that Lovell had given him Lazy Lawrence, was drowned with many
others crossing the Ferry in a storm. The old harper who used to be the
delight of travellers is now in a state of dotage. There was no harper
at Bangor: the waiter told us "they were no profit to master, and was
always in the way in the passage; so master never lets them come now."
In the midst of all the sublime and beautiful I had a happy mixture of
the comic, for we had a Welsh postillion who entertained us much by his
contracted vocabulary, and still more contracted sphere of ideas. He and
my father could never understand one another, because my father said
"qu_a_rry," and the Welshman said "qu_e_rry"; and the burthen of all he
said was continually asking if we would not like to be "driven to
Caernarvon."
_Friday morning, seven o'clock_, dressed, and ready to go on with my
scribbling. I assure you, my dear kind Aunt Mary, it is a great pleasure
to me to write this letter at odd minutes while the horses are changing,
or after breakfast or dinner for a quarter of an hour at a time, so that
it is impossible that it should tire me. I owe all my present
conveniencies for writing to various Sneyds: I use Emma Sneyd's
pocket-inkstand; my ivory-cutter penknife was the gift of my Aunt
Charlotte, and my little Sappho seal a present of Aunt Mary's.
For miles we have had beautiful hollies in the hedges; I wish my Aunt
Charlotte would be so kind as to have a few small hollies out of
Wilkinson's garden planted in the new ditch between Wood's and Duffy's;
also some cuttings of honeysuckles and pyracanthus--enough can be had
from my garden. I must finish abruptly.
_To_ MRS. RUXTON.