In fact, there was not much more room that day in the Plas Mawr, than in
the Smallest House in the World, which is the next chiefest attraction
of Conway. This, too, was crammed with damp enthusiasts, passionately
eager to sign their names in the guest-book. They scarcely left space in
the sitting-room of ten by twelve feet for the merry old hostess selling
photographs and ironically inviting her visitors’ guests to a glimpse
of the chamber overhead, or so much of it as the bed allowed to be seen.
She seemed not to believe in her abode as a practicable tenement, and
could not be got to say that she actually lived in it; as to why it was
built so small she was equally vague. But there it was, to like or to
leave, and there, not far off, was the “briny beach” where the Walrus
and the Carpenter walked together,--
“And wept like anything to see
Such quantities of sand.”
For it was in Conway, as history or tradition is, that _Through the
Looking-Glass_ was written.
There are very few places in those storied British Isles which are
not hallowed by some association with literature; but I suppose that
Llandudno is as exempt as any can be, and I will not try to invoke any
dear and honored shade from its doubtful obscurity. We once varied the
even tenor of our days there by driving to Penmaenmawr, and wreaking our
love of literary associations so far as we might by connecting the place
with the memory of Gladstone, who was literary as well as political. We
thought with him that Penmaenmawr was “the most charming watering-place
in Wales,” and as you drive into the place, the eye of faith will
detect the house, on the right, in which he spent many happy summers. We
contented ourselves with driving direct to the principal hotel, where
I know not what kept us from placing ourselves for life. We had tea and
jam en the pretty lawn, and the society of a large company of wasps of
the yellow-jacket variety, which must have been true Welsh wasps, as
peaceful as they were musical, and no interloping Scotch or Irish, for
they did not offer to attack us, but confined themselves altogether to
our jam: to be sure, we thought best to leave it to them.
[Illustration: CONWAY CASTLE]
It is said that the purple year is not purpler at any point on the
southernmost shores of England than it is at Llandudno. In proof of the
mildness of its winter climate, the presence of many sorts of tender
evergreens is alleged, and the persistence of flowers in blooming from
Christmas to Easter. But those who have known the deceitful habits of
flowers on the Riviera, where they bloom in any but an arctic degree of
cold, will not perhaps hurry to Llandudno much later than November.
All the way to Penmaenmawr the flowers showed us what they could do in
summer, whether in field or garden, and there was one beautiful hill
on which immense sweeps and slopes of yellow gorse and purple heather
boldly stretched separately, or mingled their dyes in the fearlessness
of nature when she spurns the canons of art. I suppose there is no
upholsterer or paperhanger who would advise mixing or matching yellow
and purple in the decoration of a room, but here the outdoor effect rapt
the eye in a transport of delight. It was indeed a day when almost any
arrangement of colors would have pleased.