distant effect of the dazzling white lines of houses rising above a
sapphire sea. We had a twelve hours’ voyage to Gibraltar. I was very
miserable at first, but revived in time to sketch Trafalgar and to make
two views in Africa as we coasted along. At last Gibraltar rose out of
the sea like an island, and very fine it is, far more so than I
expected, though we have not seen the precipice side of the rock yet. As
we turned into the bay of Algeciras, numbers of little boats put out to
take us on shore, and we are so enchanted with this place that we shall
remain a few days in the primitive hotel. Our sitting-room opens by
large glass doors on a balcony. Close below is the pretty beach with its
groups of brilliant figures--Moors in white burnooses, sailors, peasants
in sombreros and _fajas_. Across the blue bay, calm as glass, with white
sails flitting over it, rises the grand mass of the Rock, with the town
of Gibraltar at its foot. All around are endless little walks along the
shore and cliffs, through labyrinths of palmito and prickly pear, or
into the wild green moorlands which rise immediately behind, and beyond
which is a purple chain of mountains. It is the only place I have yet
seen in Spain which I think the dear Mother would have cared to stay
long at, and I can almost fancy I see her walking up the little paths
which she would have so delighted in, or sitting on her camp-stool
amongst the rocks.”
[Illustration: GIBRALTAR FROM ALGECIRAS]
* * * * *
“_Gibraltar, March 2._--It was strange, when we crossed from Algeciras,
to come suddenly in among an English-talking, pipe-smoking,
beer-drinking community in this swarming place, where 5000 soldiers
are quartered in addition to the crowded English and Spanish population.
The main street of the town might be a slice cut out of the ugliest part
of Dover, if it were not for the numbers of Moors stalking about in
turbans, yellow slippers, and blue or white burnooses. Between the town
and Europa Point, at the African end of the promontory, is the beautiful
Alameda, walks winding through a mass of geraniums, coronillas, ixias,
and aloes, all in gorgeous flower: for already the heat is most intense,
and the sun is so grilling that before May the flowers are all withered
up.
“I am afraid we shall not be allowed to go to Ronda. Mr. Layard has sent
word from Madrid to the Governor to prevent any one going, as the famous
brigand chief Don Diego is there with his crew. We had hoped to get up a
sufficiently large armed party, but so many stories have come, that Aunt
Sophy and her maid, Mrs. Jarvis, are getting into an agony about losing
their noses and ears.
“The Governor, Sir Fenwick Williams, has been excessively civil to us,
but our principal acquaintance here is quite romantic. The first day
when we went down to the _table-d’hôte_, there were only two others
present, a Scotch commercial traveller, and, below him, a rather
well-looking Spaniard, evidently a gentleman, but with an odd short
figure and squeaky voice. He bowed very civilly as we came in, and we
returned it. In the middle of dinner a band of Scotch bagpipers came
playing under the window, and I was seized with a desire to jump up and
look at them. Involuntarily I looked across the table to see what the
others were going to do, when the unknown gave a strange bow and wave
of _permission_! With that wave came back to my mind a picture in the
Duchesse de Montpensier’s bedroom at Seville: it was her brother-in-law,
Don Francisco d’Assise, ex-King of Spain! Since then we have breakfasted
and dined with him every day, and seen him constantly besides. This
afternoon I sat out with him in the gardens, and we have had endless
talk--the result of which is that I certainly do not believe a word of
the stories against him, and think that, though not clever and rather
eccentric, he is by no means an idiot, but a very kind-hearted,
well-intentioned person. He is kept here waiting for a steamer to take
him to Marseilles, as he cannot land at any of the Spanish ports. He
calls himself the Comte de Balsaño, and is quite alone here, and
evidently quite separated from Queen Isabella. He never mentions her or
Spain, but talks quite openly of his youth in Portugal and his visits to
France, England, Ireland, &c.
“I have remained with him while Miss Wright is gone to Tangiers with her
real nephew, Major Howard Irby. This beginning of March always brings
with it many sad recollections, the date--always nearing March 4--of all
our greatest anxieties, at Pau, Piazza di Spagna, Via Babuino, Via
Gregoriana. It is almost as incredible to me now as a year and a half
ago to feel that it is all over--the agony of suspense so often endured,
and that life is now a dead calm without either sunshine or storm to
look forward to.
“The King says that of all the things which astonish him in England,
that which astonishes him most is that the Anglo-Catholics (so called),
who are free to do as they please, are seeking to have confession--‘the
bane of the Roman Catholic religion, which has brought misery and
disunion into so many Spanish homes.’ One felt sure he was thinking of
Father Claret and the Queen, but he never mentioned them.”
* * * * *
“_March 6._--The poor King left yesterday for Southampton--a most
affectionate leave-taking. He says he will come to Holmhurst: how odd if
he does!”
* * * * *
“_Malaga, March 17._--Our pleasantest acquaintances at Gibraltar were
the Augustus Phillimores, with whom we spent our last day--in such a
lovely garden on the side of the Rock, filled with gigantic daturas,
daphnes, oranges, and gorgeous creeping Bougainvillias. Admiral
Phillimore’s boat took us on board the _Lisbon_, where we got through
the voyage very well, huddled up under cloaks on deck through the long
night. There is nothing to see at Malaga--a dismal, dusty, ugly place.”
* * * * *
“_Hôtel Siete Suelos, Granada, March 19._--We had a dreadful journey
here--rail to Las Salinas and then the most extraordinary diligence
journey, in a carriage drawn by eight mules, at midnight, over no road,
but rocks, marshes, and along the edge of precipices--quite frightful.
Why we were _not_ overturned I cannot imagine. I could get no place
except at the top, and held on with the greatest difficulty in the
fearful lunges. We reached Granada about 3½ A.M., seeing nothing that
night, but wearily conscious of the long ascent to the Siete Suelos.
“How lovely was the morning awakening! our rooms looking down long
arcades of high arching elms, with fountains foaming in the openings of
the woods, birds singing, and violets scenting the whole air. It is
indeed alike the paradise of nature and art. Through the first day I
never entered the Alhambra, but sat restfully satisfied with the
absorbing loveliness of the surrounding gorges, and sketched the
venerable Gate of Justice, glowing in gorgeous golden light. This
morning we went early to the Moorish palace. It is beyond all
imagination of beauty. As you cross the threshold you pass out of fact
into fairyland. I sat six hours drawing the Court of Blessing without
moving, and then we climbed the heights of S. Nicolas and overlooked the
whole palace, with the grand snow peaks of Sierra Nevada rising behind.”
* * * * *
“_Granada, April 1--Easter Sunday._--To-day especially I do not feel as
if I was at Granada, but in the churchyard at Hurstmonceaux. I am sure
Mrs. Medhurst and other loving hands will have decorated our most dear
spot with flowers. Aunt Sophy is most kind, only too kind and indulgent
always, but the thought of the one for and _through_ whom alone I could
really enjoy anything is never absent from me. I feel as if I lived in a
life which was not mine--beautiful often, but only a beautiful
moonlight: the sunlight has faded.”
[Illustration: TOLEDO.]
* * * * *
“_Toledo, April 11._--We had twelve hours’ diligence from Granada, saw
Jaen Cathedral on the way, and joined the railroad at the little station
of Mengibar. Next morning found us at Aranjuez, a sort of Spanish
Hampton Court, rather quaint and pleasant, four-fifths of the place
being taken up by the palace and its belongings, so much beloved by
Isabella (II.), but since deserted. We went to bed for four hours, and
spent the rest of the day in surveying half-furnished palaces, unkempt
gardens, and dried-up fountains, yet pleasant from the winding Tagus,
lilacs and Judas-trees in full bloom, and birds singing. It was a nice
primitive little inn, and the landlord sat on the wooden gallery in the
evening and played the guitar, and all his men and maids sang round him
in patriarchal family fashion.
“On the whole, I feel a little disappointed at present with this
curious, desolate old city: the cathedral and everything else looks so
small after one’s expectations, and the guide-books exaggerate so
tremendously all over Spain.
“My last day at Granada was saddened by your mention of what is really a
great loss to me--dear old Mr. Liddell’s death,[13] so kind to me ever
since I was a little boy, and endeared by the many associations of most
happy visits at Bamborough and Easington. I had also sad news from
Holmhurst in the death of dear sweet Romo, the Mother’s own little dog,
which no other can ever be.”
* * * * *
“_Madrid, April 20._--We like Madrid better than we expected. It is a
poor miniature of Paris, the Prado like the Champs Elysées, the Museo
answering to the Louvre, though all on the smallest possible scale. It
has been everything to us having our kind friends Don Juan and Doña
Emilia de Riaño here, and we have seen a great deal of them. They have a
beautiful house, full of books and pictures, and every day she has come
to take us out, and has gone with us everywhere, taking us to visit all
the interesting literary and artistic people, showing us all the
political characters on the Prado, escorting us to galleries, &c., and
in herself a mine of information of the most beautiful and delightful
kind--a sort of younger Lady Waterford. She gives a dreadful picture of
the immorality of society in Madrid under the Italian King, the want of
law, the hopelessness of redress; that everything is gained by influence
in high places, nothing by right. A revolution is expected any day, and
then the King must go. The aristocratic Madrilenians all speak of him as
‘the little Italian wretch,’ though they pity his pretty amiable Queen.
All seem to want to get rid of him, and, whatever is said by English
newspapers, we have never seen any one in Spain who was not hankering
after the Bourbons and the handsome young Prince of Asturias, who is
sure to be king soon.
“The pleasantest of all the people Madame de Riaño has taken us to visit
are the splendid artist Don Juan de Madraza and his most lovely
wife.[14]
“The Layards have been very civil. At a party there we met no end of
Spanish grandees. The Queen’s lady-in-waiting (she has only two who
will consent to take office), Marqueza d’Almena, was quite lovely in
white satin and pearls--like an old picture.”
* * * * *
“_Segovia, April 28._--I was quite ill at Madrid with severe sore throat
and cough, and this in spite of the care I was always taking of myself,
having been so afraid of falling ill. But it is the most treacherous
climate, and, from burning heat, changes to fierce ice-laden winds from
the Guadarama and torrents of cold rain. I was shut up five days, but
cheered by visits from Madame de Riaño, young Arthur Seymour an attaché,
and the last day, to my great delight, the well-known Holmhurst faces of
Mr. and Mrs. Scrivens (Hastings banker), brimming with Sussex news. Mr.
Layard was evidently very anxious to get us and all other travelling
English safe out of Spain, but we preferred the alternative, suggested
by the Riaños, of coming to this ‘_muy pacifico_’ place, and waiting
till the storm was a little blown over. Madrid was certainly in a most
uncomfortable state, the Italian King feeling the days of his rule quite
numbered, houses being entered night and day, and arrests going on
everywhere. I do not know what English papers tell, but the Spanish
accounts are alarming of the whole of the north as overrun by Carlists,
and that they have taken Vittoria and stopped the tunnel on the main
line.
“It was a dreadful journey here. The road was cut through the snow, but
there was fifteen feet of it on either side the way on the top of the
Guadarama. However, our ten mules dragged us safely along. Segovia is
gloriously picturesque, and the hotel a very tolerable--pothouse.”
* * * * *
“_Salamanca, May 5._--One day at the Segovia _table-d’hôte_ we had the
most unusual sight of a pleasing young Englishman, who rambled about and
drew with us all afternoon, and then turned out to be--the Duchess of
Cleveland’s younger son, Everard Primrose.[15]
“May-day we spent at La Granja, one of the many royal palaces, and one
which would quite enchant you. It is a quaint old French château in
lovely woods full of fountains and waterfalls, quite close under the
snow mountains; and the high peaks, one glittering mass of snow, rise
through the trees before the windows. The inhabitants were longing there
to have the Bourbons back, and only spoke of the present King as ‘the
inoffensive Italian.’ Even Cristina and Isabella will be cordially
welcomed if they return with the young Alfonso.
[Illustration: SEGOVIA]
* * * * *
“On May 2nd we left Segovia and went for one night to the Escurial--such
a gigantic place, no beauty, but very curious, and the relics of the
truly religious though cruelly bigoted Philip II. very interesting.
Then we were a day at Avila, at an English inn kept by Mr. John Smith
and his daughter--kindly, hearty people. Avila is a paradise for
artists, and has remains in plenty of Ferdinand and Isabella, in whose
intimate companionship one seems to live during one’s whole tour in
Spain. It was a most fatiguing night-journey of ten hours to Salamanca,
a place I have especially wished to see--not beautiful, but very
curious, and we have introductions to all the great people of the place.
“I shall be _very_ glad now to get home again. It is such an immense
separation from every one one has ever seen or heard of, and such a long
time to be so excessively uncomfortable as one must be at even the best
places in Spain. Five-o’clock tea, which we occasionally cook in a
saucepan--without milk of course--is a prime luxury, and is to be
indulged in to-day as it is Sunday.”
* * * * *
“_Biarritz, May 12._--We are thankful to be safe here, having seen
Zamora, Valladolid, and Burgos since we left Salamanca. The stations
were in an excited state, the platforms crowded with people waiting for
news or giving it, but we met with no difficulties. I cannot say with
what a thrill of pleasure I crossed the Bidassoa and left the great
discomforts of Spain behind. What a luxury this morning to see once more
tea! butter!! cow’s milk!!!”
* * * * *
“_Paris, May 20._--Most lovely does France look after Spain--the
flowers, the grass, the rich luxuriant green, of which there is more to
be seen from the ugliest French station than in the whole of the
Spanish peninsula after you leave the Pyrenees. I have spent the
greater part of three days at the Embassy, where George Sheffield is
most affectionate and kind--no brother could be more so. We have been
about everywhere together, and it is certainly most charming to be with
a friend who is always the same, and associated with nineteen years of
one’s intimate past.”
* * * * *
“_Dover Station, May 23._--On Monday George drove me in one of the open
carriages of the Embassy through the Bois de Boulogne to S. Cloud, and I
thought the woods rather improved by the war injuries than otherwise,
the bits cut down sprouting up so quickly in bright green acacia, and
forming a pleasant contrast with the darker groves beyond. We strolled
round the ruined château, and George showed the room whither he went to
meet the council, and offer British interference just before war was
declared, in vain, and now it is a heap of ruins--blackened walls,
broken caryatides.[16] What a lovely view it is of Paris from the
terrace: I had never seen it before. Pretty young French ladies were
begging at all the park gates for the dishoused poor of the place, as
they do at the Exhibition for the payment of the Prussian debt. George
was as delightful as only he can be when he likes, and we were perfectly
happy together. At 7 P.M. I went again to the Embassy. All the lower
rooms were lighted and full of flowers, the corridors all pink geraniums
with a mist of white spirea over them. The Duchesse de la Tremouille was
there, as hideous as people of historic name usually are. Little fat
Lord Lyons was most amiable, but his figure is like a pumpkin with an
apple on the top. It is difficult to believe he is as clever as he is
supposed to be. He is sometimes amusing, however. Of his diplomatic
relations with the Pope he says, ‘It is so difficult to deal
diplomatically with the Holy Spirit.’ He boasts that he arrived at the
Embassy with all he wanted contained in a single portmanteau, and that
if he were called upon to leave it for ever to-day, the same would
suffice. He has collected and acquired--nothing! He evidently adores
George, and I don’t wonder!”
[Illustration: FOUNTAIN OF S. CLOUD.][17]
* * * * *
_To_ MISS WRIGHT.
“_Holmhurst, May 24, 1872._--You will like to know I am safe here. I
found fat John Gidman waiting at the Hastings station, and drove up
through the flowery lanes to receive dear Lea’s welcome--most tearfully
joyous. The little home looks very lovely, and I cannot be thankful
enough--though its sunshine is always mixed with shadow--to have a home
in which everything is a precious memorial of my sacred past, where
every shrub in the garden has been touched by my mother’s hand, every
little walk trodden by her footsteps, and where I can bring up mental
pictures of her in every room. In all that remains I can trace the sweet
wisdom which for years laid up so much to comfort me, which sought to
buy this place when she did, in order to give sufficient association to
make it precious to me; above all, which urged her to the supreme effort
of returning here in order to leave it for me with the last sacred
recollections of her life. In the work of gathering up the fragments
from that dear life I am again already engrossed, and Spain and its
interests are passing into the far away; yet I look back upon them with
much gratitude, and especially upon your long unvaried kindness and your
patience with my many faults.”
* * * * *
“_May 26._--To-night it blows a hurricane, and the wind moans sadly. A
howling wind, I think, is the most melancholy natural accompaniment
which can come to a solitary life. After this, I must give you--to
meditate on--a beautiful passage I have been reading in Mrs.
Somerville--‘At a very small height above the surface of the earth the
noise of the tempest ceases, and the thunder is heard no more in those
boundless regions where the heavenly bodies accomplish their periods in
eternal and sublime silence.’”
* * * * *
It is partly the relief I experienced after Spain and the animation of
ever-changing society which make me look back upon the summer of 1872 as
one of the happiest I have spent at Holmhurst. A constant succession of
guests filled our little chambers, every one was pleased, and the
weather was glorious. I was away also for several short but very
pleasant glimpses of London, and began to feel how little the virulence
of some of my family signified when there was still so much friendship
and affection left to me.
* * * * *
_To_ MISS WRIGHT.
“_Holmhurst, June 21, 1872._--I am feeling ungrateful for never having
written since my happy fortnight with you came to a close, a time which
I enjoyed more than I ever expected to enjoy anything again, and which
made me feel there might still be something worth living on for, so much
kindness and affection did I receive from so many. It is pleasant too to
think of your comfortable home, which rises before me in a gallery of
happy pictures, and I know it all so well now, from the parrot in Mrs.
Jarvis’s room to the red geraniums in your window. I have had Mrs. and
Miss Kuper here, and now I am alone, no voice but that of the
guinea-fowls shrieking ‘Come back’ in the garden. I miss all my London
friends very much, but suppose one would not enjoy it if it went on
always, and certainly solitude is the time for work: I did eleven hours
of it yesterday. As regards my books, I feel more and more with Arnold
that a man is only fit to teach as long as he is himself learning
daily.”
* * * * *
“_Holmhurst, June 25._--‘Poor Aunt Sophy’ would not have thought she had
done nothing to cheer me, could she have seen the interest with which I
read her letter and returned to it over and over again. Such a letter is
quite delightful, and here has the effect of one reaching Robinson
Crusoe in Juan Fernandez, so complete is the silence and solitude when
no one is staying here.
‘The flowers my guests, the birds my pensioners,
Books my companions, and but few beside.’[18]
“How I delight in knowing all that the delightful human beings are
about, of whom I think now as living in another hemisphere. I should
like to see more of people--perhaps another year I may not be so busy:
that is, I long for the cream which I enjoyed with you, but I should not
care for the milk and water of a country neighbourhood. If one has too
much people-seeing, however, even of the London best, one feels that it
is ‘a withering world,’[19] and that if--
‘The world is too much with us, late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.’[20]
“I have been made very ill-tempered all day because Murray, during my
absence in Spain, has published a second edition of my Oxfordshire
Handbook, _greatly_ altered, without consulting me, and it seems to me
utterly spoilt and vulgarised. He is obliged by his contract to give me
£40, but I would a great deal rather have seen the book uninjured and
received nothing.”
* * * * *
_To_ MISS LEYCESTER (after a long visit from her at Holmhurst).
“_Holmhurst, August 18, 1872._--There seems quite a chaos of things
already to be said to the dear cousin who has so long shared our quiet
life, and who has so much care for the simple interests of this little
home. Much have I missed her--in her chair, with her crotchet; sitting
on the terrace; and especially in the early morning walk yesterday, when
the garden was in its richest beauty, all the crimson and blue flowers
twinkling through a veil of dewdrops, and when ‘the gentleness of Heaven
was on the sea,’ as Wordsworth would say. I am grieved to think of you
in London, instead of in your country home.
“Our visit to Hurstmonceaux was thoroughly enjoyed by Mr. and Mrs.
Pile.[21] For myself, I shall always feel such short visits produce
such extreme tension of conflicting feelings that they are scarcely a
pleasure. Most lovely was the drive for miles through Ashburnham beech
and pine woods and by its old timber-yard. At Lime Cross we saw Mrs.
Isted at her familiar window, and the dear woman sat there all the
afternoon to have another glimpse on our return. We drove to the foot of
the hill and walked up to the church. Our sacred spot looked most
peaceful, its double hedge of fuchsia in full flower, and the turf as
smooth as velvet. We had luncheon in the church porch, and then went to
the castle, and back through the park uplands, high with fern, to
Hurstmonceaux Place. How often, at Hurstmonceaux especially, I now feel
the force of Wordsworth’s lines:
‘Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys and fears,
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.’”
* * * * *
_To_ MISS WRIGHT.
“_Holmhurst, Sept. 6, 1872._--If my many guests of the last weeks have
liked their visits, I have most entirely enjoyed having them and the
pleasant influx of new life and new ideas. Dear old Mrs. Robert Hare is
now very happy here, and most grateful for the very small kindness I am
able to show. I have pressed her to make a long visit, as it is a real
delight to give so much pleasure, though humbling to think that, when
one can do it so easily, one does not do it oftener. She is quite
stone-deaf, so we sit opposite one another and correspond on a
slate.[22] On Tuesday I fetched Marcus Hare from Battle. He also is
intensely happy here; but his aunts, the Miss Stanleys, have written to
refuse to see him again or allow him to visit them, because he has been
to see the author of the ‘Memorials.’ I took him to Hurstmonceaux
yesterday, and lovely was the first flush of autumn on our dear woods,
while the castle looked most grand in the solemn stillness of its misty
hollow. Next week I shall have George Sheffield here.”
[Illustration: FROM THE LIBRARY WINDOW, FORD.][24]