Queenston Heights

“ The river as it issues from the gorge at Queenston is barely six hundred feet in width, and flows at the rate of about four miles an hour. The cliffs which wall it in above are almost perpendicular, yet on the Canadian side, in many places, were so overgrown and almost concealed, by shrubs and trees, which struck their roots into the clefts and crannies of the rocks as to make it possible for an ordinarily active man to climb up with little difficulty from the water’s edge to the summit. ”

“ When he reached Queenston and saw that the Americans had succeeded in getting a footing on the Heights, he put himself at the head of a small body of men and rushed up the mountain side eager to dislodge the enemy. ”

“ The Queenstone Heights, to the east of the village, are a lofty ridge of land rising three hundred feet above the level of the country below. They are quite as precipitous as the banks of the river. The railroad winds along the face of this magnificent bank. Gigantic trees tower far above your head, and a beautiful fertile country lies extended at your feet. ”

“ Queenstown, despite the popularity of our sovereign, is not likely, for some time at least, to present a rivalry, in any thing but its romantic and commanding site, to the busy, bustling, and not very symmetrically built town which has been erected in honour of Her august eldest uncle. ”

“ The great cataract being more accessible by the Queenston route, all the distinguished visitors to our shores in former years came to this port. Chateaubriand was here as early as 1790. Lafayette, Thomas Moore, the Bourbon princes, and Louis Napoleon saw the town enjoying the top-most wave of prosperity. It is said that Moore’s poem beginning, “I knew by the smoke that so gracefully curled,” was inspired by the breakfast fire of one of Queenston’s houselets. ”

“ Most of the inhabitants of Queenstown are English or Scotch, there being fewer Dutch or Germans there than in any of the other towns we had visited. There are a number of fine churches and schools, with several newspapers and banks. The ladies of the place are especially social, and dress handsomely. The railway, which had been finished to the port of East London two years previous to our arrival, seemed to have given an impetus to trade, and it was confidently hoped by the burghers would increase rapidly the prosperity of the district. ”

“ Quentin constitutes no striking feature in the landscape. But standing upon the hill itself one speedily realizes how fully its possession dominates the whole of the approaches to it. So placed that both stretches of the river can from it be commanded by fire, and giving full and uninterrupted observation over all the country to the west and north and south of it, the hill is ringed around with line upon line of wire entanglements, and its forward slopes are glacis-like and bare of almost any cover. ”

“ No one was in the vicinity, and we were walking very slowly, for, truth to tell, I desired to delay our parting until the very last moment. Of all the leafy spots in giant London, there is none so rural, so romantic, or so picturesque in summer as that portion of Kensington Gardens lying between Queen’s Gate and the Broad Walk. ”

“ The Englishmen who have to run this blockade scowl at the nuisance, and do not disguise their annoyance with it; but the Americans treat it as capital fun, and buy and give with a reckless liberality which has made many of the peddlers rich, and begging a lucrative profession.
The run ashore at Queenstown depends for what it embraces on the time which the passengers have; but the westward-bound steamers are usually in the harbor long enough, waiting for the mails, to enable them to go up the river to Cork and kiss the Blarney Stone. ”

“ From the brow of one of the hills in this ridge, which overhangs the little village of Queenstown, the eye of the traveller is gratified with one of the finest prospects that can be imagined in nature: you stand amidst a clump of large oaks, a little to the left of the road, and looking downwards, perceive, through the branches of the trees with which the hill is 111clothed from the summit to the base, the tops of the houses of Queenstown, and in front of the village, the ships moored in the river ”

“ Very early on a July morning in 1919 Constable Brown was on his beat in Kensington, in the immediate neighbourhood of Cathcart Square.
Cathcart Square was an old-fashioned backwater of this highly respectable suburb. It had not been built on any regular lines. Small, narrow houses nestled comfortably by the side of what might be called mansions. At the entrance to the Square itself, a narrow-fronted milk-shop stood next door to a palatial residence. The dairy was very old, and the Square, with its strange agglomeration of houses, had been built round it. ”

“ This brings us into the present highroad at Highgate Station, where turns off the way to Muswell Hill beside Highgate Woods, a trim pleasure-ground of lawns and low thickets traversed by arched alleys and glades, in which one might well forget being not yet clear of London suburbs. On the opposite side of the Muswell Hill Road, Queenswood makes another shady park, its groves well displayed in the hollow formerly known as Churchyard Bottom. ”

“ On the slope, half way up the slope, snuggling down at the foot of the slope, are residences of every degree of beauty. Houses, square and solid, with wide porticos; houses rising into many gabled peaks; houses that have swollen into all sorts of bay windows running up to the roof, or stopping with the first story. Houses that fling themselves up into the sky in towers and turrets, and assert themselves to be, indeed, castles.
Queenstown comes at last, a town hung up on a steep hillside, and on the very brow of the hill is an immense cathedral, unfinished like St. Finn Barre's, of Cork. ”

“ The by-path he had taken was that which leads over the hills from Godalming past Field Place to the little old-world village of Compton. Having crossed the ploughed lands, he entered a thick coppice, where the path began to run down with remarkable steepness into wide meadows, on the other side of which lay a dark wood. The narrow path running through the coppice terminated at a stile which gave entrance to the park-like meadow-land.
Descending this path he halted at the stile, leaning against it. Alone in that rural solitude, far removed from the mad hurry of London life, he stood to think. ”

“ In chagrin he had come to London, bought one of the finest mansions overlooking Hyde Park, and was now endeavouring to enter the charmed circle by entertaining all and sundry on a scale lavish even for millionaires.
Although the bluff old bachelor was fond of placing his “J.P.” after his name, dropping his “h’s,” and referring on inopportune occasions to the fact that when a lad he had assisted to build his great mill at Oldham by carrying hods of mortar up a ladder, he was nevertheless popular among a certain set. ”

“ Across High Street, Camden Town, at the junction of the Kentish Town and other roads, five hundred men worked with a will, piling together every kind of ponderous object they could pillage from the neighbouring shops—pianos, iron bedsteads, wardrobes, pieces of calico and flannel, dress stuffs, rolls of carpets, floorboards, even the very doors wrenched from their hinges—until, when it reached to the second storey window and was considered of sufficient height, a pole was planted on top, and from it hung limply a small Union Jack. ”

“ London had finished its long and toilsome day. Tired Hammersmith and jaded Notting Hill crowded into the omnibuses, eager to get to their homes without a moment’s delay, while gay Belgravia and Kensington were starting forth upon their night of delight, to be spent within that little area of half a mile around Charing Cross, wherein centres all the life and diversion of the giant metropolis. Gay London is very concentrated. ”

“ He walked along the beach, savagely kicking his toes into the white sand. "Johnnie!" She had called him Johnnie. And the way she had looked at him, too! Again John Quincy felt that sharp pang in his heart. Foolish, foolish; better go back to Boston and forget. Peaceful old Boston, that was where he belonged. He was an old man out here—thirty, nearly. Better go away and leave these children to love and the moonlit beach.
Miss Minerva had gone in the big car to call on friends, and the house was quiet as the tomb. John Quincy wandered aimlessly about the rooms, gloomy and bereft. ”

“ London overflowed southward and westward until every village and every town within fifty miles was so full that beds were at a premium, and in various places, notably at Chartham, near Canterbury, at Willesborough, near Ashford, at Lewes, at Robertsbridge, at Goodwood Park, and at Horsham, huge camps were formed, shelter being afforded by poles and rick-cloths. Every house, every barn, every school, indeed every place where people could obtain shelter for the night, was crowded to excess, mostly by women and children sent south, away from the horrors that it was known must come. ”

“ In that oasis in the desert of aristocratic London one can obtain quite sylvan surroundings. True, the trees and vegetation are covered with a film of grime from the millions of smoking chimneys of the giant metropolis, still Kensington Gardens ever possesses a charm all its own as a clandestine meeting-place for well-born lovers and ill-born loafers, for nursemaids and soldiers, and for persons of both sexes who wish for a little quiet talk in the open air in order so often to clear a hectic atmosphere.
Such I judged to be the case between Gaston Suzor and Gabrielle Tennison. ”

“ We have to make about twenty-three degrees more. A degree of longitude, in latitude fifty-one, is thirty-seven and three quarters miles, which would make it eight hundred and sixty-eight miles more to run in order to reach Queenstown. You see I am posted," said Shuffles.
"I see you are. By the way, had you noticed that Queenstown is not in the Navigator, or on the older maps?" added Pelham.
"Yes; the place was called the Cove of Cork until 1849, when, in honor of her majesty's visit to the town, the name was changed to Queenstown." ”

“ In Hill Rise, close to that row of glaring new semi-aesthetic houses known as Cardigan Gate, a neat brougham drawn by a magnificent pair of bays was in waiting, and before we entered, the footman carefully drew down the blinds, then saluted as he closed the door.
The interior of the carriage would have been dark had not a tiny glimmering lamp been placed there, and this showed that, in addition to the blinds drawn down, heavy curtains had also been arranged, so that to see outside was impossible. ”

“ Then we returned to dear old London, Lady Thorold having taken up her abode in a small house in Upper Brook Street.
Our most devoted friend to-day is Henry Whichelo—Harry, as he likes us both to call him. He knows everything of the past, yet no syllable of our secret will ever pass his lips. Not a week goes by but he dines at our table, full of his quiet humour, yet sometimes as we sit smoking together in the evening, the subject of those strange happenings—how fresh they still are in the memory of both of us—comes uppermost in our conversation. ”

“ The coast towns of Queensland are pretty much all alike. They have from one to two thousand inhabitants each, and though they’re pretentiously laid out, they consist of little more than a single street. On the streets, other than the principal one, there are scattered houses, where the owners of land have endeavored to increase the value of their property by putting up buildings, but generally with poor success. For pavement the natural earth is obliged to answer, as most of these towns are too poor to afford anything better. ”

“ To the west short roads have been pushed out into the market-gardens, and north, at the angle, stands the Quill Inn, behind which Quill Alley, a narrow paved passage skirting the backs of the houses, leads into a labyrinth of small streets set at all angles and of all degrees of respectability. There are many newly-built flats on either side of Quill Alley. Every foot of ground is taken up, and [Pg 79] from the Coopers' Arms to Gardeners' Lane the district is compact with small houses and shops. ”

“ From the great drawing-room, a huge apartment with a rather low ceiling curiously carved, he passed on, and traversing one of the ante rooms, found himself in the long corridor which ran the whole length of the quadrangle. The stone flooring was worn hollow in the centre by the tramp of generations of armed men, and the quaint arched doors were heavy and studded with monstrous nails. He stood there for a few minutes, glancing through the diamond panes out into the ancient courtyard. His abstracted mood was suddenly disturbed by the sound of the breakfast gong. ”

“ He held open the car door.
Through bright streets where life appeared to flow with a pleasant rhythm, they bowled along. Beside the curbs stood the colorful carts of the flower venders, unnecessarily painting the lily of existence. Weary traveler though he was, John Quincy took in with every breath a fresh supply of energy. New ambitions stirred within him, bigger, better bond issues than ever before seemed ridiculously easy of attainment.
Roger Winterslip had not been among those lured to suburban life down the peninsula; he resided in bachelor solitude on Nob Hill. ”

“ At present it was the poor—the toiling millions now unemployed—who were the first to feel the pinch of hunger and its consequent despair. They filled the main arteries of London—Holborn, Oxford Street, the Strand, Regent Street, Piccadilly, the Haymarket, St. James's Street, Park Lane, Victoria Street, and Knightsbridge, overflowing northward into Grosvenor, Berkeley, Portman, and Cavendish Squares, Portland Place, and to the terraces around Regent's Park. The centre of London became congested. ”