MORE TRAVEL
“Alas! for railway travellers one approach to a place is like another.
Fancy arriving at Cologne through ragged factory outskirts and being
deposited under a glazed shed from which nothing but the railway objects
can be seen! We made a dash to the cathedral, I on the way remarking the
badly-dressed Düppel heroes (!) with their cook’s caps and tight
trousers; and oh dear! the officers are of a very different mould here
from what they are in Belgium. Big-whiskered fellows with waists enough
to make the Belgians faint. But I am trifling. We went into the
cathedral by a most glorious old portal covered with rich Gothic
mouldings. Happy am I to be able to say I have seen Cologne Cathedral.
Now, hurrah for the Rhine! that river I have so longed, for years, to
see.”
We don’t seem to have cared much for Bonn, though I intensely enjoyed
watching the swift river from the hotel garden and the Seven Mountains
beyond. The people, too, amused and interested me very much, and the
long porcelain pipe dangling from every male mouth gave me much matter
for sketching.
My Diary on board the _Germania_: “Koenigswinter at the foot of the
Dragenfels began that series of exquisite towns at the foot of ruined
castles of which we have had more than a sufficient feast--that is, to
be able to do them all the justice which their excessive beauty calls
loudly for. We rounded the Dragenfels and saw it ‘frowning’ more
Byronically than on the Bonn side, and altogether more impressive. And
soon began the vines in all their sweet abundance on the smiling hill
slopes. Romantic Rolandsec expanded on our right as we neared it, and
there stood the fragment of the ruined castle peering down, as its
builder is said to have done, upon the Convent amidst the trees on its
island below. And then how fine looked the Seven Mountains as we looked
back upon them, closing in the river as though it were a lake, and away
we sped from them and left them growing mistier, and passed russet roofs
and white-walled houses with black beams across, and passed lovely
Unkel, picturesque to the core, bordering the water, and containing a
most delicious old church. Opposite rose curious hills, wild and round,
half vine-clad, half bare, and so on to Apollinarisberg on our right,
with its new four-pinnacled church on the hill, above Remagen and its
old church below. The last sight of the Dragenfels was a very happy one,
in misty sunlight, as it finally disappeared behind the near hills. On,
on we went, and passed the dark Erpeler Lei and the round, blasted and
dismal ruin of Okenfels; and Ling, with a cloud-capped mountain frowning
over it. As we glided by the fine restored _château_ of Argenfels and
the village of Hönningen the sky was red with the reflection of the
sunset which we could not see, and was reflected in the swirling river.
We did our Rhine pretty conscientiously by going first aft, then
forward, and then to starboard, and then to port, and glories were
always before us, look which way we would. So the Rhine has _not_ been
too much cried up, say what you will, Messrs. Blasé and Bore. The views
were constantly interrupted by the heads of the lack-lustre people on
board, who, just like the visitors at the R.A., hide the beauties they
can’t appreciate from those who long to see them. But it soon began to
grow dark.
“As we glided by Neuwied and stopped to take and discharge passengers a
band was playing the ‘Düppel March,’ so called because the Prussians
played it before Düppel. They are so blatantly proud of having beaten
the Danes and getting Schleswig-Holstein. Fireworks were spluttering,
and, altogether, a great deal of festivity was going on. It was quite
black on the afterdeck by this time, _minus_ lanterns. To go below to
the stuffy, lighted cabin was not to be thought of, so we walked up and
down, sometimes coming in contact with our fellow-man, or, rather,
woman, for the men carried lights at the fore (_i.e._, at the ends of
their cigars). At last, by the number of lights ahead, we knew we were
approaching Coblenz. We went to the “Giant” Hotel, close to the landing.
It was most tantalising to know that Ehrenbreitstein was towering
opposite, invisible, and that such masses of picturesqueness must be all
around. Papa and I had supper in the _Speise-saal_, and then I gladly
sought my couch, in my sweet room which looked on the front, after a
very enjoyable day.
“Most glorious of glorious days! The theory held so drearily by Messrs.
Blasé and Bore about the mist and rain of the Rhine is knocked on the
head. We were off to Bingen, to my regret, for it was hard to leave such
a place as Coblenz, although greater beauties awaited us further up,
perhaps, than we had yet seen. But I must begin with the morning and
record the glorious sight before us as we looked out of our windows.
Strong Ehrenbreitstein against the pearly, hot, morning sky, the
furrowed rock laid bare in many places, and precipitous, sun-tinted and
shadow-stained; the bright little town just opposite, the hill behind
thickly clothed in rich vines athwart which the sun shone deliciously.
The green of the river, too, was beautifully soft. After breakfast we
took that charming invention, an open carriage, and went up to the
Chartreuse, the proper thing to do, as this hill overlooks one of _the_
views of the world. We went first through part of the town, by the large
and rather ugly King’s Palace, passing much picturesqueness. The women
have very pleasing headdresses about here of various patterns. Of
course, the place is full of soldiers and everything seems fortified. On
our ascent we passed great forts of immense strength, hard nuts for the
French to crack, if they ever have the wickedness (_sic_) to put their
pet notion of the Rhine being France’s boundary into execution. What a
view we had all the way up; to our left, the winding Rhine disappearing
in the distance into the gorge, its beautiful valley smiling below, and
the vine-clad hills rising on either side, with their exquisite
surfaces. Purple shadows, and golden vines, and walnut trees, that
contrast which so often has enchanted my eyes on the Genoese Riviera,
the Italian lakes, and my own dear Lake Leman, gladdened them once more.
And then the really clear sky (no factory chimneys here) and those
intense white clouds casting shadows on the hills of lovely purple. We
went across the wide plateau on the top, a magnificent exercise ground
for the soldiers, health itself, and then we beheld, winding below us in
its sweet valley and by two picturesque villages, the little Moselle, by
no means ‘blue,’ as the song says, but of a pinky brown and apparently
very shallow. We were at a great height, and having got out of the
carriage we stood on the very verge of a sheer precipice, at the
far-down base of which wound the high road. Sweet little Moselle! I was
so loth to leave that view behind. It really does seem such a shame to
say so little of it. The air up there was full of the scent of wild
thyme, and mountain flowers grew thick in that hot sun, and the short
mountain grass was brown.
“We descended by another road and were taken right through the town to
the old Moselle bridge which crosses that river near its confluence with
the green Rhine. What turreted corners, what gable ends, what exquisite
David Roberts ‘bits’ at every turn! The bridge and its old gate were a
picture in themselves, and the view from the middle of the bridge of the
walls, the old buildings, church towers and spires, and boats and rafts
moored below, was the essence of the picturesque. Market women and
_pelotons_ of soldiers with glittering helmets and bayonets make
excellent foreground groups. How unlike nearly-deserted Bruges is this
busy, thronged city! Oxen are as much used about here as horses, and add
much to the artist’s joy. But I must hurry on; there is all the glorious
Rhine to Bingen to ascend. What a feast of beauty we have been partaking
of since leaving Failure Bonn!
“Lots of people at 1 o’clock _table d’hôte_: staring Prooshan officers
in ‘wings’ and whiskers, more or less tightly clad, talking loud and
clattering their swords unnecessarily; swarms of English and a great
many honeymoon couples of all nations. It was very hot when we left to
dive into that glorious region we had seen from the Chartreuse. Those
were golden hours on board the _Lorelei_. But more ‘spoons’; more
English; more Ya-ing natives and small boys always in the way, and so we
paddled away from beautiful Coblenz, and very fine did the ‘Broadstone
of Honour’ look as we left it gradually behind. And now we began again
the castles and the villages, the former more numerous than below
stream. Happy Mr. Moriarty to possess such a castle as Lahneck; and then
the beautiful town below, and the gorgeous wooded steep hills and the
beautiful tints on the water. Golden walnut trees on the banks and old
church towers--such rich loveliness gliding by perpetually. The towns
are certainly half the battle; they add immensely to the scene. Rhense
was the oldest town we had yet seen, and the old dark walls are
crumbling down. Such bits of archways, such corner bits, such old
age-tinted roofs! I _must_ not pass over Marksburg, the most perfect old
castle on the Rhine, quite unaltered and not quite ruinous, as it is
garrisoned by a corps of Invalides. It therefore looks stronger and
grander than the others. Below the cone which it crowns nestled the
inevitable picturesque town (Braubach) upon the shore.
“Soon after passing this beautiful part we rounded another old village
and church on our right, for the river takes a great bend here. Of
course, new beauties appeared ahead as we swept round, soft purple
mountains, one behind the other, and hillsides golden with vines and
walnut trees. And then we came to Boppart, in the midst of the gorge,
one of the most enchanting old walled towns we had yet seen, with a
large water-cure establishment above it upon the orchard slopes of the
hill. Then the old castle called ‘The Mouse’ drew our attention to the
left again, and then to the right appeared, after we had passed the twin
castles of Sternberg and Liebenstein, or the ‘Brothers,’ the magnificent
ruin of Rheinfels above the town of St. Goar in the shadow of the steep
hill. How splendidly those blasted arches come out against the sunny
sky! Then ‘The Cat’ appeared on our left, supposed to be watching ‘The
Mouse’ round the corner; then, with the last gleam of the sun upon it,
appeared the castle of ‘Schönberg’ after we had passed the Lorelei rock,
tunnelled through by the railway, and hills glowing in autumn tints.
Sunset colour began to add new charm to mountains, hills, and river. Two
guns were fired in this part of the gorge for the echo. It rolled away
like thunder very satisfactorily. Gutenfels on its rock was splendid in
the sunset, with the town of Caub at its feet, and the curious old tower
called the Pfalz in mid-stream, where poor Louis le Débonnaire came to
die. I can hardly individualise the towns and their over-looking castles
that followed. There was Bacharach, with its curious three-sided towers
and church of St. Werner; then more castles, getting dimmer and dimmer
in the deepening twilight. The last was swallowed up in the night.”
I need not dwell on Bingen. I see us, happy wanderers, dropping down to
Boppart, to halt there for very fondly-remembered days at the water-cure
of “Marienberg,” which we made our habitation for want of an hotel.
Being there I did the “cure” for nothing in particular, but was none the
worse for it. At any rate it passed me as “sound” after the ordeal by
water. The ordeal was severe, and so was the Spartan food. To any one
who wasn’t going through the water ordeal the Spartan food ordeal
seemed impossible. But soon one got to like the whole thing and delight
in the freshness of that life in the warm sunny weather. We both
accepted the “Grape Cure” with unmixed feelings--2 lbs. each of grapes a
day; and even the cold, deep plate of sour milk (_dicke milch_),
sprinkled with brown breadcrumbs, and that _kraut_ preserve which so
dashed us at our first breakfast, became rather fascinating. We took our
pre-breakfast walk on four glasses of cold water, though, to _wet_ our
appetites. I see now, in memory, the swimming baths, with the blue water
rushing through them from the hills, and feel the exhilaration of the
six-in-the-morning plunge. Oh! _la jeunesse! La joie de vivre!_
They had dancing every Thursday evening in what was the great vaulted
refectory of the monks before that monastery was secularised. One gala
evening many people came in from outside. The young ladies were in
muslin frocks, which they, no doubt, had washed themselves, and the
ballroom was redolent of soap. The gentlemen went into the drawing-room
after each dance and combed their blond hair and beards at the
looking-glass over the mantelpiece, having brought brush and comb with
them. The next morning I was very elaborately saluted by a man in a
blouse, driving oxen, and I recognised in him one of my partners of the
evening before who had worn the correct _frac_ and white tie. What a
strange amalgamation of democracy and aristocracy we found in Germany!
The Diary tells of the music we had every evening till 10 o’clock and
“lights out.” My mother and one or two typical German musical
geniuses--women patients--kept the piano in constant request, and the
evenings were really very bright and the tone so homely and kind.
Kindness was the prevailing spirit which we noticed amongst the Germans
in those far-away days. How they complimented us all on our halting
German; how the women admired our frocks, especially the buttons! I hope
they didn’t expect us to go into equal ecstasies over their own
costumes. We sang and were in great voice, perhaps on account of the
“plunge baths,” or was it the “sour milk”?
A big Saxon cavalry officer who was doing the cure for a kick from a
horse and, being in mufti, had put off his “jack-boot” manners, was full
of enthusiasm about our voices. He expressed himself in graceful
pantomime after each of my songs by pointing to his ear and running his
finger down to his heart, for he spoke neither English nor French, and
worshipfully paid homage to Mamma’s pianoforte playing. She played
indeed superbly. He was a big man. We called him “the Athlete.” We had
nicknames for all the patients. There was “the _Sauer-kraut_,” there was
the “Flighty,” the funniest little shrivelled creature, a truly
wonderful musical genius, who, having heard me practising one morning,
flew to Mamma, telling her she had heard me go up to _Si_ and that I
must make my name as a _prima donna_--no less. That Mendelssohn had
proposed to her was a treasured memory. Her mother, with true German
pride of birth, forbade the union. There was a very great dame doing the
cure, the “_Incog_,” who confided her card to Mamma with an Imperial
embrace before leaving, which revealed her as Marie, Prinzessin zu
Hohenzollern Hechingen. Then there was a most interesting and ugly
duellist, who a short time previously had killed a prince. His wife wore
blue spectacles, having cried herself blind over the regrettable
incident. And so on, and so on.
The vintage began, and we visited many a vineyard on both banks of the
rapid, eddying river, watching the peasants at their wholesome work in
the mellowing sunlight. Whenever we bought grapes of these pleasant
people, they insisted on giving us extra bunches _gratis_ in that
old-fashioned way so prevalent in Italy. I record in the Diary one
classic-looking youth, with the sunset gold behind his serious, handsome
face, bent slightly over the vine he was picking, on the hillside where
we sat. He seemed the personification of the sanctity of labour. All
this sounds very sentimental to us war-weary ones of the twentieth
century, but we need refreshment in the pleasures of memory; memory of
more secure times. The Diary says:--
“When we left Boppart, Mamma and we two girls were half hidden in
bouquets, and our Marienberg friends clustered at the railway carriage
door and on the step--the ‘_Sauer-kraut_,’ the ‘Flighty,’ the ‘Athlete’
and all, and, as we started, the salutations were repeated for the
twentieth time, the ‘Athlete’ taking a long sniff of my bouquet, then
quickly blocking his nose hard to keep the scent in, after going through
the pantomime of the ear, the finger, and the heart. As Papa said, ‘One
gets quite reconciled to the two-legged creature when meeting such
people as these.’ Good-bye, lovely Boppart, of ever sweet
recollections!”
We tarried at Cologne on our way to England. I see, together with
admiring and elaborate descriptions of the cathedral, a note on the
kindly manners of the Germans, so curiously at variance with the
impression left on the present generation by the episodes of the late
war. At the _table d’hôte_ one evening the two guests who happened to
sit opposite our parents, on opening their champagne at dessert, first
insisted on filling the two glasses of their English _vis-à-vis_ before
proceeding to fill their own. German manners then! The military class
kept, however, very much aloof, and were very irritating to us with
their wilfully offensive attitude. That unfortunate spirit had already
taken a further step forward after the conquest of Schleswig-Holstein,
and was to go further still after the knock-down blow to Austria; then
in 1870 comes more arrogance, and so on to its own undoing in our time.
“_Aix la Chapelle._--Good-bye, Cologne, ever to remain bright by the
remembrance of its cathedral and that museum containing pictures which
have so inspired my mind. And so good-bye, dear, familiar Rhine; not the
Rhine of the hurried tourist and his John Murray Red Book, but the
glorious river about whose banks we have so often wandered at our
leisure.
“And now ‘_Vorwärts_, _marsch_!’ Northwards, to the Land of Roast Beef
plus Rinderpest.[1] But first, Aachen. Ineffable poetry surrounds this
evening of our arrival, for from the three churches which stand out
sharp against the bright moonlight sky in front of the hotel there peal
forth many mellow bells, filling my mind with that sort of sadness so
familiar to me. This is All Hallows’ Eve.
“_November 1st._--We saw the magnificent frescoes in the long, low,
arched hall of the Rathhaus, which is being magnificently restored, as
is the case with all the fine things of the Prussia we have seen. We
only just skimmed these great works of art, for the horses were waiting
in the pelting rain.... The first four frescoes we saw were by Rethel,
the first representing the finding of the body of Charlemagne sitting in
his tomb on his throne, crowned and robed, holding the ball and sceptre;
a very impressive subject, treated with all its requisite poetry and
feeling. The next fresco represents in a forcible manner Charlemagne
ordering a Saxon idol to be broken; the third is a superb episode from
the Battle of Cordova, where Charlemagne is wresting the standard from
the Infidel. The horses are all blindfolded, not to be frightened by the
masks which the enemy had prepared to frighten them with. The great
white bulls which draw the chariot are magnificently conceived. The
fourth fresco represents the entry of the great emperor--whose face, by
the by, lends itself well to the grand style of art--into Pavia; a
superb composition, as, indeed, they all are. After painting this the
artist lost his senses. No doubt such efforts as these may have caused
his mind to fail at last. He had supplied the compositions for the other
four frescoes which Kehren has painted, without the genius of the
originator. We were shown the narrow little old stone staircase up which
all those many German emperors came to the hall. I could almost fancy I
saw an emperor’s head coming bobbing up round the bend, and a figure in
Imperial purple appear. Strange that such a steep little winding
staircase should be the only approach to such a splendid hall. The new
staircase, up which a different sort of monarch from the old German
emperors came a few days ago, in tight blue and silver uniform, is
indeed in keeping with the hall, and should have been trodden by the
emperors, whereas this old cad of a king[2] (_sic_) would get his due
were he to descend the little old worn stair head foremost.”
At Brussels my entry runs: “_November 3rd._--My birthday. I feel too
much buoyed up with the promise of doing something this year to feel as
wretched as I might have felt at the thought of my precious ‘teens
dribbling away. Never say die; never, never, never! This birthday is
ever to be marked by our visit to Waterloo, which has impressed me so
deeply. The day was most enjoyable, but what an inexpressibly sad
feeling was mixed with my pleasure; what thoughts came crowding into my
mind on that awful field, smiling in the sunshine, and how, even now, my
whole mind is overshadowed with sadness as I think of those slaughtered
legions, dead half a century ago, lying in heaps of mouldering bones
under that undulating plain. We had not driven far out of Brussels when
a fine old man with a long white beard, and having a stout stick for
scarcely-needed support, and from whose waistcoat dangled a blue and red
ribbon with a silver medal attached bearing the words ‘Wellington’ and
‘Waterloo,’ stopped the carriage and asked whether we were not going to
the Field and offering his services as guide, which we readily accepted,
and he mounted the box. This was Sergeant-Major Mundy of the 7th
Hussars, who was twenty-seven when he fought on that memorable 18th
June, 1815. In time we got into the old road, that road which the
British trod on their way to Quatre Bras, ten miles beyond Waterloo, on
the 16th. We passed the forest of Soignies, which is fast being cleared,
and at no very distant period, I suppose, merely the name will remain.
What a road was this, bearing a history of thousands of sad incidents!
We visited the church at Waterloo where are the many tablets on the
walls to the memory of British officers and men who died in the great
fight. Touching inscriptions are on them. An old woman of eighty-eight
told us that she had tended the wounded after the battle. Is it
possible! There she was, she who at thirty-eight had beheld those men
just half a century ago! It was overpowering to my young mind. The old
lady seems steadier than the serjeant-major, eleven years her junior,
and wears a brown wig. Thanks to the old sergeant, we had no bothering
vendors of ‘relics.’ He says they have sold enough bullets to supply a
dozen battles.
“We then resumed our way, now upon more historic ground than ever, the
field of the battle proper. The Lion Mound soon appeared, that much
abused monument. Certainly, as a monument to mark where the Prince of
Orange was wounded in the left shoulder it is much to be censured,
particularly with that Belgian lion on the top with its paw on Belgium,
looking defiance towards France, whose soldiers, as the truthful old
sergeant expressed himself, ‘could any day, before breakfast, come and
make short work of the Belgians’ (_sic_). But I look upon this pyramid
as marking the field of the fifteenth decisive battle of the world. In a
hundred years the original field may have been changed or built upon,
and then the mound will be more useful than ever as marking the centre
of the battlefield that was. To make it much ground has been cut away
and the surface of one part of the field materially lowered. On being
shown the plan for this ‘Lion Mound,’ Wellington exclaimed, ‘Well, if
they make it, I shall never come here again,’ or something to that
effect, and, as old Mundy said, ‘the Duke was not one to break his word,
and he never did come again.’ Do you know that, Sir Edwin Landseer, who
have it in the background of your picture of Wellington revisiting the
field? We drove up to the little Hotel du Musée, kept by the sergeant’s
daughter, a dejected sort of person with a glib tongue and herself
rather grey. We just looked over Sergeant Cotton’s museum, a collection
of the most pathetic old shakos and casques and blundering muskets, with
pans and flints, belonging to friend and foe; rusty bullets and cannon
balls, mouldering bits of accoutrements of men and horses, evil-smelling
bits of uniforms and even hair, under glass cases; skulls perforated
with balls, leg and arm bones in a heap in a wooden box; extracts from
newspapers of that sensational time, most interesting; rusty swords and
breastplates; medals and crosses, etc., etc., a dismal collection of
relics of the dead and gone. Those mouldy relics! Let us get out into
the sunshine. Not until, however, the positive old soldier had
marshalled us around him and explained to us, map in hand, the ground
and the leading features of the battle he was going to show us.
“We then went, first, a short way up the mound, and the old warrior in
our midst began his most interesting talk, full of stirring and touching
anecdotes. What a story was that he was telling us, with the scenes of
that story before our eyes! I, all eagerness to learn from the lips of
one who took part in the fight, the story of that great victory of my
country, was always throughout that long day by the side of the old
hussar, and drank in the stirring narrative with avidity. There lay
before us the farm of La Haie Sainte--‘lerhigh saint’ as he called
it--restored to what it was before the battle, where the gallant Germans
held out so bravely, fighting only with the bayonet, for when they came
to load their firearms, oh, horror! the ammunition was found to be too
large for the muskets, and was, therefore, useless. There the great Life
Guard charge took place, there is the grave of the mighty Shaw, and on
the skyline the several hedges and knolls that mark this and that, and
where Napoleon took up his first position. And there lies La Belle
Alliance where Wellington and Blücher did _not_ meet--oh, Mr.
Maclise!--and a hundred other landmarks, all pointed out by the notched
stick of old Mundy. The stories attached to them were all clearly
related to us. After standing a long time on the mound until the man of
discipline had quite done his regulation story, with its stirring and
amusing touches and its minute details, we descended and set off on our
way to Hougoumont. What a walk was that! On that space raged most of the
battle; it was a walk through ghosts with agonised faces and distorted
bodies, crying noiselessly.
“Our guide stopped us very often as we reached certain spots of leading
interest, one of them--the most important of all--being the place where
the last fearful tussle was made and the Old Guard broke and ran. There
was the field, planted with turnips, where our Guards lay down, and I
could not believe that the seemingly insignificant little bank of the
road, which sloped down to it, could have served to hide all those men
until I went down and stooped, and then I understood, for only just the
blades of the grass near me could I see against the sky. Our Guards
must indeed have seemed to start out of the ground to the bewildered
French, who were, by the by, just then deploying. That dreadful V formed
by our soldiers, with its two sides and point pouring in volley after
volley into the deploying Imperial Guard, must have indeed been a
‘staggerer,’ and so Napoleon’s best soldiers turned tail, yelling
‘_Sauve qui peut!_’ and ran down that now peaceful undulation on the
other side of the road.
“Many another spot with its grim story attached did I gaze at, and my
thoughts became more and more overpowering. And there stood a survivor
before us, relating this tale of a battle which, to me, seems to belong
to the olden time. But what made the deepest impression on my mind was
the sergeant’s pointing out to us the place where he lay all night after
the battle, wounded, ‘just a few yards from that hedge, there.’ I repeat
this to myself often, and always wonder. We then left that historic
rutted road and, following a little path, soon came, after many more
stoppages, to the outer orchard of Hougoumont. Victor Hugo’s thoughts
upon this awful place came crowding into my mind also. Yet the place did
look so sweet and happy: the sun shining on the rich, velvety grass,
chequered with the shade of the bare apple trees, and the contented cows
grazing on the grass which, on the fearful day fifty years ago, was not
_green_ between the heaps of dead and dying wretches.
“Ah! the wall with the loopholes. I knew all about it and hastened to
look at it. Again all the wonderful stratagems and deeds of valour,
etc., etc., were related, and I have learnt the importance, not only of
a little hedge, but of the slightest depression on a battlefield.
Riddled with shot is this old brick wall and the walls of the farm, too.
Oh! this place of slaughter, of burning, of burying alive, this place of
concentrated horror! It was there that I most felt the sickening terror
of war, and that I looked upon it from the dark side, a thing I have
seldom had so strong an impulse to do before. The farm is peaceful again
and the pigs and poultry grunt and cluck amongst the straw, but there
are ruins inside. There’s the door so bravely defended by that British
officer and sergeant, hanging on its hinges; there’s the well which
served as a grave for living as well as dead, where Sergeant Mundy was
the last to fill his canteen; and there’s the little chapel which served
as an oven to roast a lot of poor fellows who were pent up there by the
fire raging outside. We went into the terror-fraught inner orchard,
heard more interesting and saddening talk from the old soldier who says
there is nothing so nice as fighting one’s battles over again, and then
we went out and returned to the inn and dined. After that we streamed
after our mentor to the Charleroi road, just to glance at the left part
of the field which the sergeant said he always liked going over the
best. ‘Oh!’ he said, looking lovingly at his pet, ‘this was the
strongest position, except Hougoumont.’ It was in this region that
Wellington was moved to tears at the loss of so many of his friends as
he rode off the field. Papa told me his memorable words on that
occasion: ‘A defeat is the only thing sadder than a victory.’ What a
scene of carnage it was! We looked at poor Gordon’s monument and then
got into our carriage and left that great, immortal place, with the sun
shedding its last gleams upon it. I feel virtuous in having written this
much, seeing what I have done since. We drove back, in the clear night,
I a wiser and a sadder girl.”
About this same Battle of Waterloo. Before the Great War it always
loomed large to me, as it were from the very summit of military history,
indeed of all history. During the terrible years of the late War I
thought my Waterloo would diminish in grandeur by comparison, and that
the awful glamour so peculiar to it would be obliterated in the fumes of
a later terror. But no, there it remains, that lurid glamour glows
around it as before, and for the writer and for the painter its colour,
its great form, its deep tones, remain. We see through its blood-red
veil of smoke Napoleon fall. There never will be a fall like that again:
it is he who makes Waterloo colossal.