“The place is beyond everything poetical: even I have been unable to refrain from some verses, which I send you.
“Grey cloud-wreaths lovingly entwine,
And in their mystic maze enfold
The sacred Mount, which day’s decline
Shadowed upon a sheet of gold:
And faint and sweet, the surges beat
The burthen of the ancient lay,
Which low or loud, through mirk and cloud,
The Past bewails eternally.
But when the radiant morn awakes
To kiss fresh life into the flowers,
The windows beam, the turrets gleam,
The blue waves break in silver showers,
Tossing their glistening foam away
In merry riplets to the shore:
The Present reigns; the murmuring Past,
Though whispering still, is heard no more.
Serene, the great Archangel keeps
His vigil here on high,
Whilst in the changeful world below
Fleet life is fluttering by.
Through shine or shower, his silent power,
Unheard, unseen his sway,
Spirits of ill, which daunt or chill,
Shall drive rebuked away.”
To Miss Leycester.
“St. Michael’s Mount, Sept. 7, 1889.—I have enjoyed my visit here extremely, and, difficult as it was to manage coming, it is more difficult to get away, from the extreme kindness and genuine hospitality of Lord and Lady St. Levan, who would like one to stay months. I think I never saw such excellent people, or a happier, more united family; and being very well off, their kindnesses to rich and poor cannot be calculated. Then it is indeed the most delightful of homes, so healthy in its pure air of mingled sea and mountain exhilaration, so glorious in its views over land and water, with every atmospheric effect which Nature, never the same, can paint upon both. Looking down from the ramparts into the deep clear chrysoprase water is in itself a delight, and watching the fish rising and leaping with sparkling showers, and the great white seagulls swooping down upon them. No wonder the sons of the house, devoted to sport of every kind, think there is nothing to compare to the fishing excursions round their home. But there is unspeakable grandeur, too, when the sacred Mount is enveloped in sea-fog, shrouding it from all sign of the mainland and everything else, and when nothing is heard but the distant booming of the waves far down below. This is the one great house of England, I suppose, which is approached by no road whatever, for even the pathlet which winds among the cliffs and low wind-blown bushes of the island is lost where it crosses the turfy slopes which intervene here and there. The castle is in seven stories (of which I inhabit the second); many of the rooms are walled with rock, and in one of the narrow passages it is known that a number of skeletons—naughty nuns, I suppose—are walled up. I never saw a place where so much of daily life was in the open air.”
“Holmhurst, Sept. 19.—From the Mount I went to visit the Tremaynes in the Vale of Tavistock. 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. We had tea in the old panelled hall, surrounded by four fine Chinese dogs.
“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.
“A relic in the house is the ‘tongue-token,’ only given during the Civil Wars to the most faithful friends of the King and Queen,—a little gold medal which could be concealed under the tongue. In this case it was given to the Tremayne of the day, because, at imminent risk to himself, he rode to announce to the King at Oxford the birth of the Princess Henrietta at Exeter.
“We went several excursions: to the fine old gateway of Bradstone; to the Kellys of Kelly, who have a most admirable collection of Alpine plants, growing upon little but old mortar; to the Duke of Bedford’s house of Ensleigh, beautiful in hilly woods feathering down to a river; and to Launceston, a dull place, where the castle recalls that of Gisors.