Augustus J. C. Hare

“ Under an old clock-tower one entered upon a handsome drive with an avenue of fine elms, on the right of which a lawn, with magnificent firs, oaks, and cedars, swept away to the hills. At the end rose the stately old red brick house, half covered with magnolias, myrtles, and buddlea, with blazing beds of scarlet and yellow flowers lighting up its base. Through an oak hall hung with armour a fine staircase led to the library—an immense room with two deep recesses, entirely furnished with black oak from Copenhagen, and adorned with valuable enamels collected at Lisbon. ”

“ The sea was of the softest Mediterranean blue, and the walk along the edge of the cliffs, through the cornfields, looking down first on the old town and then on the different little coves with their curiously twisted and richly coloured rocks, most delightful. The castle is hidden by the uplands at first, but crowns the ridge of a magnificent rock, which runs far out into the sea, with a line of battered towers. In the depths are reefs covered with seaweed, between which the sea flows up in deep green pools. ”

“ Cambo is two hours' drive from Biarritz—a most pleasant watering-place on a high terrace above the Nive, with pergolas of vines and planes, a churchyard which is a perfect blaze of lilies and roses, and an inn-garden which is full of lovely flowers. Close by is the opening to the Pas de Roland, a grand little gorge where the Nive rushes through the mountains—a finer Dovedale. A rocky path ascends by the side of the stream and climbs a succession of steeps to la roche percée, through which it passes to a little hamlet and old bridge. ”

“ Woodward would call in Lea, who was now kneeling between us at the bedside. 'And you bless poor Lea too,' I said. 'Yes, dear Lea; she has been a most good and faithful and dear servant to me. I pray that God may be with her and John, and keep them, and I hope that they will be faithful and loving to you, as they have been to me, as long as you need them.... Be reconciled to all who have been unkind to you, darling; love them all, this is my great wish, love—love—love—oh, I have tried to live for love—oh! ”

“ With them I went many delightful expeditions into the distant Campagna: to Ostia, with its then still gorgeous marbles and melancholy tower and pine; to Castel Fusano, with its palace, like that of the Sleeping Beauty, rising lovely from its green lawns, with its pine avenue and decaying vases with golden-flowered aloes, and beyond all the grand old forest with its deep green recesses and gigantic pines and bays and ilexes, its deep still pools and its abysses of wood, bounded on one side by the Campagna, and on the other by the sea ”

“ Their home was a most beautiful one—Rockend, at the point of the bay, with very large grounds and endless delightful walks winding amongst rocks and flowers, or terraces overhanging the natural cliffs which there stride out seawards over the magnificent natural arch known as London Bridge. Nevertheless I recollect this time as one of the utmost misery. My Aunt Lucy, having heard some one say that I was more intelligent than little Marcus, had conceived the most violent jealousy of me, and I was cowed and snubbed by her in every possible way. ”

“ To-day Arthur and I went by rail to Versailles, and took a little carriage thence to Port Royal. The country was lovely, the forest red and golden with autumnal tints. In a wooded valley, with a green lawn winding through it like a river, watered by a little brooklet, are the remains of Port Royal, the farmhouse where Racine and Pascal lived and wrote, the dovecot and fountain of Mère Angélique, the ruins of the church, the cemetery and cross, and 'the Solitude' where the nuns sat in solemn council around a crucifix in the middle of the woods. ”

“ Before them stood their sister, the Fante of the milk-white rocks, but no longer humble, no longer to be restrained even within the bounds of the greatest palace upon earth. Majestic in beauty, invincible in power, she raised her mighty wings to heaven in the aisles of a vast cathedral, and mounted higher and higher as by an aërial staircase, till, far above all human things, she flung her snow-white tresses into the azure sky! ”

“ From Ancona we went to Loreto, a lovely drive then, through ranges of hills, sweeping one behind another like files of an advancing army, and crested sometimes by the picturesque roofs, domes, and towers of an old town; sometimes clothed to their summits with olives and pines, vineyards and mulberry-gardens. Here and there a decayed villa stood by the roadside in its overgrown garden, huge aloes and tall cypresses rising from its tangled grass and periwinkles. ”

“ Here one entered upon the wood walks, which wound for five miles up and down hill, through every exquisite variety of scenery—to Bilberry Hill Moss House, with its views, across the woods, up the gorge of the Allen to the old tower of Staward Peel—to the Raven's Crag, the great yellow sandstone cliff crowned with old yew-trees, which overhangs the river—and across the delicately swung chain-bridge by the Birkie Brae to a lonely tarn in the hills, returning by the Swiss Cottage and the Craggy Pass, a steep staircase under a tremendous overhanging rock. ”

“ A precipitous rock rises out of the flats, with the Lahn rushing beneath, and all up one side the picturesque old black and white houses of the town, while growing out of the bare rock, its front almost on the precipice, like Durham, towers the magnificent cathedral, one of the oldest in Germany, abounding in all those depths and contrasts of colour which make the old German churches so picturesque—each window having its different moulding of blue, yellow, and red stone: and reflected in the clear water beneath. ”

“ I slept at Barnard Castle last night, and set out at eight this morning for the Fells. It was gloomy and dismal, with mists gathering black over the distance, and constant rain falling; but there was no alternative. The valley of Upper Teesdale is in some ways like a valley in the Alps, the glaringly white farmhouses scattered thinly over the brilliantly green meadows, the hedgerows and trees replaced by low rugged stone walls, 'the Grass of Parnassus' springing up by the side of all the clear streams. The people are all 'kin' to one another, and are singularly honest and truthful. ”

“ Holmhurst, Dec. 1, 1870.—Madame de Staël shows how she must have suffered when she wrote—'Le reveil, quel moment pour les malheureux!' To-day is the first of a month in which my darling has no share: each day there is something in which I seem to part with her afresh. My life is so changed that it seems impossible to believe that it is such a short time since I was so happy—only, between the present dumb blank and the happy time are those terrible thirty-six hours of illness, and in the thought of them I am more than satisfied that she cannot go through them again. ”

“ So I was thankful when we were able to come on to this comfortable hotel, where Flora and the faithful Victoire are incessant in their attentions. I am still anxious about my sweet Mother, who is very ailing and unable to go out; otherwise I always like staying at Pisa, with its clean quiet streets and the interest of the Campo Santo, so full of beautiful relics and memories. Many delightful hours have I spent there, and what a school of art and history it is! And then the Spina is always so graceful and striking against the crimson sunset which turns the muddy Arno into a river of fire. ”

“ It was a great pleasure this autumn to pay a little visit to my mother's old friend Miss Clinton, whose frequent visits to Lime had counted as some of the happiest days of my childhood. She was essentially what the French call "bonne à vivre," so good-humoured and cheerful, and so indulgent to the faults of others. The crystal stream of her common-sense had always seemed to stir up the stagnant quagmire of religious inanities which the Maurice sisters had surrounded us with at Hurstmonceaux. ”

“ Lime, June 8, 1856.—I had found the dear mother in a sadly fragile state, so infirm and tottering that it is not safe to leave her alone for a minute, and she is so well aware of it, that she does not wish to be left. She cannot now even cross the room alone, and never thinks of moving anywhere without a stick. Every breath, even of the summer wind, she feels most intensely. ”

“ There, the commonplace hedges and fields of Shropshire are broken by a ridge of high red sandstone cliffs most picturesque in form and colour, and overgrown by old trees with a deep valley between them, where great herds of deer feed in the shadow. On one side is a grotto, and a marvellous cavern—"the Druid's Cave"—in which I used to think a live Druid, a guide dressed up in white with a wreath, appearing through the yellow light, most bewildering and mysterious. On the other side of the valley rise some castellated ruins called "the Red Castle." ”

“ It is an odd hermit-like life in the small circuit of our little Holmhurst, with one or two guests constantly changing in its chambers, but no other intercourse with the outside world. At last summer has burst upon us, and looks all the brighter for the long waiting, and our oak-studded pastures are filled with gay groups of haymakers, gathering in the immense crop. ”

“ I heard Victoire cry out,'Mon Dieu! courage; c'est la volonté de Dieu: l'heure de votre mère a sonné, l'heure aussi du mari de Clémence a sonné.' She poured something down my throat and rubbed my hands, and brought me round by degrees. Clémence was sobbing violently for the old husband, whose death she had learnt on her arrival; Auntie was standing looking from one to the other, as if she did not realise how terrible was that evening: she had hoped that the joy of seeing Rome again would make me forget what was sad. ”

“ Stoke Heath, at that time a wild pine-wood carpeted with heather: some narrow lanes between high hedgerows: a white gate in a hollow with river-watered meadows: a drive between steep mossy banks with beech-trees, and a glimpse of an old church and tufted islands rising from the river in the flat meadows beyond: then the long windows and projecting porch of a white house with two gables. ”

“ I cannot live again the time that is no longer mine. We are constantly journeying on to our last end, so let us strive in our spiritual life truly to lay at the foot of the cross something of that which binds our wills to ourselves and to creatures, and thus free our will from all that hinders its perfect union with the will of our Lord Jesus Christ."
I have been making a long digression from my personal story, but Esmeralda, in her gentle patience and ardent search after all things high and holy, had become so greatly endeared to us in the last few years, that her life was almost ours. ”

“ Chillingham, Sept. 8.—This park is quite as beautiful in its way as any scenery abroad, and much more so, I think, than any in Scotland. It is backed by the Cheviot Hills, and often broken into deep dells, with little streamlets rushing down them, and weird old oaks whose withered branches are never cut off, sheltering herds of deer. Great herds too of wild cattle, which are milk-white, and have lived here undisturbed from time immemorial, come rushing every now and then down the hillsides like an army, to seek better pasture in the valley. ”

“ At twelve, we drove through the volcanic hills, covered with the loveliest flowers—blue larkspur, marigolds, asphodels, campanulas, and great tufts of crimson pinks—to the Laacher See, a deep blue lake, once the crater of a volcano, in a wooded basin of the hills. It still sends forth such noxious vapours that no bird can fly across it and live, and dead bodies of small animals are constantly found along its shores. At one end of the lake, Kloster Laach rises out of the woods, with a little inn nestling in an orchard close under the walls of the church. ”

“ When I was going to wish her good-night she said—'I do hope, darling, I am not like the ungrateful lepers. I try to be always praising God, but I know that I can never praise Him enough for His many, many mercies to me.' I could not but feel, in the alarm afterwards, if my dearest Mother never spoke to me again, what beautiful last words those would have been, and how characteristic of her. Oh, goodness in life brings us near to God: not death! not death! ”