Augustus J. C. Hare

“ There is a great deal to admire in Lady Llanover: her pertinacity in what she thinks right, whether she is right or not: her insistence on carrying out her sovereign will in all things; but chiefly her touching devotion to the memory of the mother from whom she, the youngest and favourite daughter, was scarcely ever separated. The whitewashed ‘Upper House’ in the park is kept fresh and bright and aired, as if the long-lost mother were constantly expected. In her sitting-room a bright fire burns in winter, and fresh flowers are daily placed on the little table by her old-fashioned sofa. ”

“ On the rare occasions when it clears, Palermo is most lovely, backed by such grand mountains, the nearer ones rugged purple rocks, over which the snow-peaks peep out. The cathedral also is very beautiful, with a great courtyard in front of it planted with palm-trees and geraniums; but there are none of the glorious flowers of Girgenti; the climate is a constant damp chill, like that of Pau and Pisa, and I shall always associate the place with the ceaseless melancholy roar of the sea, the drip and splash of the rain, which fell day and night, and the monotony of the mouldy deserted walks. ”

“ Above, behind the Casino, is yet another water-sparkling staircase guarded by a vast number of huge lions and griffins, and beyond this all is tangled wood and rocky mountain-side. How we pity the poor King and Queen of Naples, the actual possessors, but who can never come here now. The whole place is like a dream which you wish may never end, and as one gazes through the stony crowd across the green glades to the rosy-hued mountains, one dreads the return to a world where Fauns and Dryads are still supposed to be mythical, and which has never known Caprarola. ”

“ How familiar all the dear places seemed on the way, and yet how changed the feeling with which one saw them—Thrasymene, Perugia, Assisi, Spoleto—all so much to us, so woven into our lives, and I was thankful for the twilight obscurity before the steep of Fidenae rose beside us, and then the towers of the beloved city crested the hill, the hill down which my darling drove so often in her little carriage to the Ponte Salario and the Ponte Nomentano, drinking in the full beauty of the historic loveliness. ”

“ From Somersetshire I went to Hatfield, arriving just after sunset. You could only just see the red colouring on the majestic old house, but all the windows blazed and glittered with light through the dark walls; the Golden Gallery with its hundreds of electric lamps was like a Venetian illumination. The many guests coming and going, the curiously varied names inscribed upon the bedroom doors, give the effect of having all the elements of society compressed under one roof. It was pleasant to meet Lady Lytton, beautiful still, and with all the charm of the most high-bred refinement. ”

“ All the surroundings are harmonious—solemn old houses, with black and white marble seats running along their basement, on which one may sit and gaze: a tower surmounted by a gigantic bronze warrior, who strikes the hours with the clash of his sword upon a great bell: an ancient oblong palace with gothic arches and flat windows, where thirty-four popes have sought a refuge or held a court at different times—all serving as a dark setting to make more resplendent the glittering radiancy of the golden front of the temple in their midst. ”

“ GREATLY as I always enjoy my little home of Holmhurst, dear as every corner of it is to me, I never feel as if it was well to stay there too long in winter alone. In summer, Nature itself can give sufficient companionship; but when earth is dead and frost-bound, the silence in the long hours after sunset becomes almost terrible, and I increasingly feel that late autumn and winter are the best time for visits. ”

“ Most wondrously beautiful is the cathedral of Monreale when the moon casts its magic halo over the ancient mosaics, and so it was on this night, when the artist-soldier-priest sat entranced with its unspeakable loveliness. The whole building was bathed in softest light, each avenue of arches at once a poem and a picture, when the clock struck twelve. Then from the west door a figure seemed to be approaching, a cowled figure in monastic robes, and the stranger felt with satisfaction that he had been missed and that one of the monks of the adjoining monastery was come to seek him. ”

“ In the meadows, where the cows are ringing their Swiss bells, the old oak-trees are throwing long deep shadows across lawns of the most emerald green, and the flower-beds and the terrace borders are brimming with the most brilliant flowers, over which whole battalions of butterflies and bees are floating and buzzing; the little pathlet at the side winds with enticing shadows under the beech-trees, whilst the white marble Venetian well, covered with delicate sculpture of vines and pomegranates, standing on the little grassy platform, makes a point of refinement which accentuates the whole. ”

“ It would be difficult to over-praise the sweet seclusion of the spot, the constant merry ripple of the sparkling river, the deep shade of the tall trees, the old-fashioned gardens of splendid herbaceous flowers, the charming old rooms and staircase, in which—even in this desolate place—the two powdered footmen do not look out of keeping. But the great charm lies in the family itself—in the ever-genial, courteous, sweet-tempered father—the perfectly beautiful and dignified but simple mother—the daughters and the only son. ”

“ Along the brown ridges of thymy tufa by the wayside, flocks of goats are scrambling, chiefly white, but a few black and dun-coloured creatures are mingled with them, mothers with their little dancing elf-like kids, and old bearded patriarchs who love to clamber to the very end of the most inaccessible places, and to stand there embossed against the clear sky, in triumphant quietude. The handsome shepherd dressed in white linen lets them have their own way, and the great rough white dogs only keep a lazy eye upon them as they themselves lie panting and luxuriating in the sunshine. ”

“ It was an exquisite still evening when I arrived at Sydenham, and it is a beautiful drive through a richly-wooded valley, till a sharp turn brings one to the old bridge over the clear tossing Lyd, on the other side of which rises the noble old manor-house, only separated from the road by ‘the green court’ with a wrought iron gate. By this gate, as I drove up, stood, with her daughter, Mrs. Tremayne, her exquisite profile, quite white, like a Greek gem, relieved against the dark yew foliage: it is a picture that remains with one. ”

“ The church was locked and the key was away, but a little girl snatched a sick bambino from its cradle, and carried it, and guided me to S. Maria in the depth below—even far lovelier and more refined in the delicate sculpture of its roseate stone than the great church above. All its great western doors were open to the brilliant sunshine, yet it was terribly damp, the font and all the lower part of the pillars green as the grass outside. But the exquisite pulpit and bishop’s throne were unhurt, and the lovely frescoes—even more beautiful in effect than detail—with which the walls were covered. ”

“ No passing traveller, no stayer for one night, can realise Orvieto. Hours must be passed on those old stone benches, hours in reading the wondrous lessons of art, of truth, of beauty and of holiness which this temple of temples can unfold. For Orvieto is not merely a vast sculpture-gallery and a noble building, but its every stone has a story to tell or a mystery to explain. What depths of thought are hidden in those tremendous marble pictures between the doors! ”

“ It is an enchanting old house!—its endless succession of small sitting-rooms, all lived in, all full of pictures, books, and flowers, and opening on to a sunny terrace and broad expanse of lawn, with pine-trees beyond it. In one of the rooms Lady Sydney still presides from her picture, but as few alive now can remember her, radiant in loveliness, with a coronet surmounting her abundant and beautiful hair. Upstairs there is an oak gallery, half library, half passage, but deliciously pleasant and quaint. ”

“ This house is perfectly charming—the old hall and its pictures, the oak staircase, the warm tapestried sitting-room—all, as it were, typical of the broad christian kindness and warm-hearted cordiality of its inmates. It is a house in which no ill is ever spoken, and where scandal sits dumb; where, with the utmost merriment, there is the most sincere religious feeling, and yet an entire freedom from cant and what is called ‘religious talking.’ There is here a mutual spirit of forbearance, and an absence of all egotism and self-seeking, which is more instructive than a thousand sermons ”

“ Her most poetical home is just suited to her—the tiniest castle in the world, with its one noble gate-tower giving access to a little green plateau beneath which the Melgum and the Isla rush through deep wooded gorges to their meeting-place. And into these gorges the castle windows look deep down. Then, to those who know Lady Airlie, I need not say how beautiful the little rooms are, how splendid the few flowers, how much of story clusters round the furniture and pictures—‘only a few; I do not like a room or a wall to be crowded, even with the best things,’ says their mistress. ”

“ The scene on the beautiful white marble staircase was charming, especially when the bride went away, her father and mother leading her down on either side, and all the tiny bridesmaids and pages—nieces and nephews between six and seven—gambolling in front, with huge baskets of dark red roses. Above, under the circular arches, between the pillars of coloured marbles, and against a golden wall background, the overhanging galleries were filled with all the most beautiful women in London leaning over the balustrades. ”

“ It is an interesting collection, as being the written mind of one man. You see the same picture over and over again, from its first sketch of an idea—merely a floating idea—to its entire completion, and it is interesting to know how slow a growth of thought was required to lead up to something, which, after all, was not so very wonderful in the end. The pictures are not beautiful, but the man who did them must have been charming, such a simple lover of farmhouse life, apple-orchards, and old-fashioned gardens, with a glory of flowers—all the right kinds of flowers blooming together. ”

“ Mountains of the most graceful forms girdle in this paradise, and, from the height whence we first gaze upon it, endless distances are seen, blue and roseate and snowy, melting into infinity of space; while, from the valley itself, rises, island-like, a mass of orange-coloured rock, crowned with old walls and houses and churches, from the centre of which is uplifted a vast cathedral, with delicate spray-like pinnacles, and a golden and jewelled front,—and this is Orvieto. ”

“ At Tivoli our party had a charming day, riding on eleven donkeys, penetrating into the depths of the cascades, having luncheon in front of the temple, and sitting in the sun opposite the cascatelle. At sunset we were at the Villa d’Este, and went down into the hollow to look up at the grand old villa, golden through the dark cypresses.
I saw, however, comparatively little of those who usually make the pleasure of my Roman winter, and devoted myself to the Prince. There is no use—none—in trying to be, or to do, two things at once. ”

“ Whilst feeling the change which her loss makes in my life, I have read words of Bishop Magee which have come home to me. ‘The most beautiful and natural of sunsets is still a sunset, and the shadows that follow it are chill and depressing. I begin to feel the peculiar sadness that the death of much older relatives brings to those who are entering themselves on old age. When I see all those whom I remember once, middle-aged men and women, younger by many years than I am now, all passed and gone, I feel somehow as if light was going out of life very fast. ”

“ As I write this, and look from my window across the tiny terrace with its brilliant flowers to the oakwoods, golden in the autumn sunset, and the blue sea beyond, with the craggy mass of Hastings Castle rising up against it, I feel that there are few places more lovely than Holmhurst. Then the walks in the grounds offer a constant variety of wood and rock, flowers and water, and the distant view changes constantly, and composes into a hundred pictures. And in the little circle of this pleasant home love assuredly reigns supreme. I look upon my servants as my best and truest friends ”

“ Can one look at the amethystine mountains which girdle in the Campagna around Rome without wishing to penetrate their recesses? In the mountain towns which hang like eagles’ nests to their rocks there are not only costumes, but every one wears a costume: there the true Italian life may be seen. ”

“ At Venice a great sorrow had come to me—another blank in the narrowing circle of my beloved ones. It was the sort of sorrow from which “all at once one awakes and finds a whole wing of one’s palace has fallen,” as Emerson says. Dearest Hugh Pearson was dead. He was altogether the most perfectly good man I have ever known, and, strange to say, at the same time the most perfectly charming. He was, from his earliest youth, as free from self-consciousness as he was from selfishness, but rippled over with geniality, cordiality, warmth of interest, affection to all around him. ”

“ Cordova, Feb. 6.—We broke the dreadful journey from Valencia to Alicante by sleeping at Xativa, a lovely city of palms and rushing fountains with a mountain background, but the inn so disgusting we could not stay. Alicante, on the other hand, had no attraction except its excellent hotel, with dry sheets, bearable smells, no garlic, and butter. The whole district is burnt, tawny, and desolate beyond words—houses, walls, and castle alike dust-colour, but the climate is delicious, and a long palm avenue fringes the sea, with scarlet geraniums in flower. ”

“ On Monday, March 25, as I was breakfasting at the Athenæum, I glanced into the paper, and the first thing which met my eyes was the news of the total loss of the Eurydice, with dear good Marcus Hare and more than three hundred men. It was a terrible shock, and seemed to carry away a whole mass of one’s life in recollections from childhood.... It is many days ago now, and the dreadful fact has seemed ever since to be hammering itself into one’s brain with ceaselessly increasing horror. How small now seem the failings in Marcus’s unselfish and loving character, how great the many virtues. ”