UPTON,
June 4, 1904.
DEAR HERBERT,--I have nothing to write about. The summer is come, and
with it I enter into purgatory; I am poured out like water, and my
heart is like melting wax; I have neither courage nor kindness, except
in the early morning or the late evening. I cannot work, and I cannot
be lazy. The only consolation I have--and I wish it were a more
sustaining one--is that most people like hot weather better.
I will put down for you in laborious prose what if I were an artist I
would do in half-a-dozen strokes. There is a big place near here,
Rushton Park. I was bicycling with Randall past the lodge, blaming the
fair summer, like the fisherman in Theocritus, when he asked if I
should like to ride through. The owner, Mr. Payne, is a friend of his,
and laid a special injunction on him to go through whenever he liked.
We were at once admitted, and in a moment we were in a Paradise. Payne
is famed for his gardeners, and I think I never saw a more beautiful
place of its kind. The ground undulates very gracefully, and we passed
by velvety lawns, huge towering banks of rhododendron all ablaze with
flower, exquisite vistas and glades, with a view of far-off hills. It
seemed to me to be an enchanted pleasaunce, like the great Palace in
The Princess. Now and then we could see the huge facade of the house
above us, winking through its sunblinds. There was not a soul to be
seen; and this added enormously to the magical charm of the place, as
though it were the work of a Genie, not made with hands. We passed a
huge fountain dripping into a blue-tiled pool, over a great cockleshell
of marble; then took a path which wound into the wood, all a mist of
fresh green, and in a moment we were in a long old-fashioned garden,
with winding box hedges, and full of bright flowers. To the left, where
the garden was bordered by the wood, was set a row of big marble urns,
grey with age, on high pedestals, all dripping with flowering creepers.
It was very rococo, like an old French picture, but enchanting for all
that. To the right was a long, mellow brick wall, under which stood
some old marble statues, weather-stained and soft of hue. The steady
sun poured down on the sweet, bright place, and the scent of the
flowers filled the air with fragrance, while a dove, hidden in some
green towering tree, roo-hooed delicately, as though her little heart
was filled with an indolent contentment.
The statue that stood nearest us attracted my attention. I cannot
conceive what it was meant to represent. It was the figure of an old,
bearded man, with a curious brimless hat on his head, and a flowing
robe; in his hands he held and fingered some unaccountable object of a
nondescript shape; and he had an unpleasant fixed smile, which he
seemed to turn on us, as though he knew a secret connected with the
garden which he might not reveal, and which if revealed would fill the
hearers with a secret horror. I do not think that I have often seen a
figure which affected me so disagreeably. He seemed to be saying that
within this bright and fragrant place lay some tainted mystery which it
were ill to tamper with. It was as though we opened a door out of some
stately corridor, and found a strange, beast-like thing running to and
fro in a noble room.
Well, I do not know! But it seems to me a type of many things, and I
doubt not that the wise-hearted patrician, the former owner, who laid
out the garden and set the statue in its place, did so with a purpose.
It is for us to see that there lies no taint behind our pleasures; but
even if this be not the message, the heart of the mystery, may not the
figure stand perhaps for the end, the bitter end, which lies ahead of
all, when the lip is silent and the eye shut, and the heart is stilled
at last?
The quiet figure with its secret, wicked smile, somehow slurred for me
the sunshine and the pleasant flowers, and I was glad when we turned
away.--Ever yours,