1842.
A tour in Wales in 1842.--Extracts from my journal of this tour.--My
inborn love for beautiful materials.--Stay at Rhyl.--Anglesea and
Caernarvon.--Reasons for specially remembering this tour.
The pleasantest recollections I have of my father are connected with a
tour in Wales that he undertook with me and his eldest sister in the
summer of 1842. My aunt made me keep a journal of that tour, which I
still possess, and by its help those days come hack to me with a
vividness that is very astonishing to myself. Being accustomed to live
with grown-up people, and having no companions of my own age in the same
house (though I had cousins at Hollins and friends at school), I had
acquired a way of talking about things as older people talk, so that the
journal in question contains many observations that do not seem natural
for a child. The fact, no doubt, is that I listened to my father and
aunt, and then put down many of their remarks in my little history of
our tour; but I was very observant on my own account, and received very
strong impressions, especially from buildings, such as old castles and
cathedrals, and great houses, and I had a topographic habit of mind even
in childhood, which made every fresh locality interesting to me and
engraved it on my memory. Perhaps the reader may like to see a page of
the diary. It seems rather formal and elderly to be written by a child
eight years old, but it must be remembered that it was an exercise
written by my father's desire and to please him. Letters to my cousins
at the same date would have been more juvenile. Nevertheless, it was
perfectly natural for me then to use words employed by older people, and
the reader will remember that I had been learning Latin for more than
two years.
"On the road from Rhydland to Abergele we saw Hemmel Park, the seat of
Lord Dinorbin, lately burnt down. Near Rhydland is Penwarn, the seat of
Lord Mostyn; the house is small and unpretending, the grounds are
beautiful. There is a very handsome dog-kennel, in which are kept
forty-four couple of fine fox-hounds ready for work, besides old ones in
one kennel, and young ones in another: the dogs all in such good order
and kennels so perfectly clean. In one field were sixteen hunters
without shoes. Lord Mostyn does not live much at Penwarn, generally in
London. He is an old man, and at present an invalid. We had several
pleasant days' fishing in the Clwyd and Elway; a Mr. Graham at Rhyl has
permission to fish in Lord Mostyn's preserve, and he may take a friend,
which character Papa and I personated for the time.
"About eight miles from Rhyl is Trelacre, the seat of Sir Pyers Mostyn,
a very excellent modern building; the grounds are laid out with most
luxuriant taste, nothing is wanting to give effect to it as a whole. In
the woods opposite the house is a rich but rather formal distribution of
flower-beds; everything appeared to be in blossom. On an elevation is
placed the most ingeniously contrived Grotto; at every turn there is a
device of another character to the last, here a lion couchant, there the
head of Momus, a wild boar's head, a heron, a skeleton, &c., &c. In one
place were two old friars seated, each leaning on his stick, apparently
in earnest conversation; all these are roughly, but with great accuracy,
formed upon the numerous pillars which support a room or two above. The
last object you arrive at is a hermit as large as life seated in his
cell, with one book beside him and another on his knee, upon which his
left hand is placed; his right is laid across his breast. The pillars
are so contrived that the little cavern is light in every part; at the
entrance is an immense sea-dragon with large glaring eyes and a long red
tongue hanging half-way out. The monster had an effect somewhat
startling. Next above the grotto is a small room hewn out of the rock,
with sofas and pillows on each side the fireplace hewn out of the same
rock. In the centre is a stone table, upon which were some beautiful
antique bowls, cups, &c. The door to this apartment is a great
curiosity, being made to appear as if of rock; we did not think at first
that it was a real door. Over this room is another, the residence of a
lame woman, who showed us upon the leads above her dwelling a very
extensive prospect; amongst the objects was the mouth of the river Dee.
She afterwards [took us] to a moss house, and several other nice points
in the garden. The walks are covered with the material left in washing
the lead ore, through which no weed can even peep. It is many-colored,
and the glittering of here and there a bit of ore, lead, or silver, has
a very pretty effect indeed."
The reader will have had enough of the journal by this time. Its only
merit is the accurate noting down of details that I had seen; but many
of the details are such as children of that age do not commonly pay
attention to, as, for instance, in this bit about an old church:--
"The church at Dyserth has an east window which is considered the
greatest antiquity in Wales; many figures of the saints are represented
in colored glass, the lead betwixt the panes is the breadth of two
fingers. The yard has several old trees--two very fine yews, and
certainly the largest birch for miles round."
I notice a great interest in all beautiful materials throughout the
pages of this journal; the kind of wood used for the suites of furniture
is invariably mentioned, as, for example, the chairs of solid ebony in
the dining-room at Penrhyn Castle, the old oak in the dining-room at
Trelacre, and the light oak in the drawing-room, the carved oak ceilings
and pillars at Penrhyn, and the use of stone from St. Helen's there, as
well as the bedstead that is made of slate, and the enormous table of
the same material in the servants' hall. The interest in materials is a
special instinct, a kind of sympathy with Nature showing itself by
appreciation of the different qualities of her products. This instinct
has always been very strong in me, and I have often noticed it in
others, especially in artists. Some poets are very fond of describing
beautiful materials; but the instinct is not confined to poetical or
artistic natures, being often found amongst workmen in the handicrafts,
and it may be associated with a sense of the usefulness of materials, as
well as with admiration of their beauty. With me the interest in them is
both artistic and utilitarian; all metals, woods, marble, etc., are
delightful to me in some way.
In 1842 Rhyl was a little quiet place known to the Liverpool people as a
good bathing-place, but not spoiled by formal rows of houses and big
hotels. There was at that time in Rhyl a gentleman who possessed a sort
of genteel cottage in a relatively large garden, and though the house
was small, it might have done for a widower like my father, and it was
for sale. I remember urging my father to buy it, as Rhyl pleased me on
account of the possibilities of boating and riding on the sands, besides
which we had enjoyed some excellent fishing, which delighted me as a
child, though I gave up the amusement afterwards. I mention the house
here for a particular reason. It has remained very distinctly in my
memory ever since, as my father's last chance of escape from his habits
and associates. Whilst we were in Wales together he conducted himself as
a man ought to do who is travelling with a lady and a child. He was not
harsh with me, and notwithstanding my habitual fear of him, some of my
Welsh days with him are pleasant to live over again in memory. Now, if
he had bought that house, the sort of life we were then leading might
have become habitual, and he might possibly have been saved from the sad
fate that awaited him. However, though tempted for a moment, he refused
because it did not seem a good investment, being a flimsy little
building, not very well contrived.
Though my father would not buy the house to please me, he bought me a
little bay mare at Rhyl that was a pretty and swift creature, and we
took her on the steamer to Menai, where, for want of a convenient
arrangement for landing horses, she was pitched into the sea and made to
swim ashore. She had been in a hot place on the steamer, near the
engines, and the sudden change to the cold sea-water was probably (so we
thought afterwards) the reason why she became broken-winded, which was a
great grief to me. I hardly know why I record these trifles, but they
have an importance in the feelings of a boy, and I am weak enough to
have very tender feelings about animals down to the present day.
We visited Anglesea and Caernarvon, and other places too well known for
the reader to tolerate a description of them here. In those days the
tubular bridge had not yet been thought of; but the beautiful suspension
bridge at Menai was already in existence, and was the most remarkable
bridge then existing in the world. I was more struck by the beauty of
the structure than by its costliness or size; the journal says, "It is
indeed wonderfully beautiful." On one of our excursions we saw what in
rainy weather is a good waterfall, and I find a reference to this that I
quote for the curious bit of Welsh-English that is included in it,--"We
came to a little village, which has in a wet season a very fine
waterfall; the driver said it would not be seen to advantage because
there was 'few water.' There certainly was 'few water,' but the fine
high rocks gave a powerful idea of what it would have been had the
rushing of waters taken the place of the death-like stillness which then
prevailed."
The reader will perhaps pardon me for having dwelt longer on this Welsh
tour than the interest of it may seem to warrant; but I look back to it
with lingering regret as the last agreeable association connected with
the memory of my father. It was a most happy little tour. I had an
intensely strong affection for my father's eldest sister Mary, who
accompanied us, and whose dear handwriting I recognize in a few
corrections in the journal. Besides, that year 1842 is absolutely the
last year of my life in which I could live in happy ignorance of evil
and retain all the buoyancy of early boyhood. A terrible experience was
in reserve for me that soon aged me rapidly, and made a really merry
boyish life impossible for me after having passed through it.