“Holmhurst, Sept. 29, 1898.—The building and changes here go on well, but very slowly, a result of having the work done with my own stone, and as much as possible by the men of our village. I think all will look well in the end. Not a chair or a book will be moved from the older part of the house, consecrated by my mother’s memory, but room will be given for the many things connected with Esmeralda, which I bought back at Sir Edward Paul’s sale, and, if I survive her, for many precious pieces of furniture, pictures, prints, and books from Norwich which Mrs. Vaughan says that she has left me. Where you will remember a steep grass bank, there is now a double stone terrace, with vases and obelisks, and luxuriant beds of brilliant flowers edged with stone, copied as a whole from the Italian Villa Lante near Viterbo. At the end are a staircase and gateway to the Solitude, the ‘Ave-Vale Gate,’ with ‘Ave’ on the outside and ‘Vale’ within. Cypresses are growing up beside it to enhance the impression of Italy, which is further carried out in a widening staircase from the centre of the terrace, with lead vases on the piers, copied in design and proportions from one at the Villa Arson near Nice. Just now, in this hot noon-day, the gorgeous flowers against the stone parapet, and background of brown-green ilex and blue-green pine are really very Italian, while below in the meadows all is as English as it can be, the cows feeding in the rich grass, the heavy rounded masses of oak foliage, and the misty sea asleep in the motionless heat. Nothing seems to move, except my little black Pomeranian spitz, Nero, frisking and barking at the butterflies. I am sure that much the happiest part of my present life is that spent at home, though there is nothing to tell about it—‘l’histoire ne se soucie pas des heureux.’
“Emmie Penrhyn is here, whose visits are always an unusual pleasure to me, and who is one of the dearest relations I have left, partly because, more than any one else, she has a distant likeness to my mother. She lives happily and most usefully at Richmond in a very little world, with a weak body but an all-sufficing soul.
“I have grieved so truly over the news of Ranulph Mostyn’s death in India, that I could not help writing to his mother. Yet I always hesitate about whether letters of condolence can be of any comfort, and can only act upon the knowledge that I like myself to have them in any great sorrow. No Christian disquisitions, however: they always seem forced and unmeaning. ‘Honest plain words best pierce the ear of grief;’ that is somewhere in Shakspeare. Thirlwall’s Letters have an excellent passage about them—‘Expressions of general condolence may be welcome as tokens of goodwill, but can scarcely exert any general alleviating power. The afflicted ones stand within a circle of images and feelings of their own, which, painful as they may be, they would not part with for worlds. Any attempt to draw them out of that circle can only inflict a useless annoyance.”
To Mrs. C. Vaughan.
“Holmhurst, Oct. 16, 1898.—I am alone this evening; the wind is wailing a dirge, and ‘the dark sea drinks in the greyness of the sky.’[589] But I have been away for three weeks. First to the sisters of my old friend Willie Milligan, who now live in the Barrington dower-house at Shrivenham, close to Beckett, the ideal ‘great house’ of my boyhood, so stately and luxurious. Now, so are the mighty fallen, it is let to some Australians, and the family—unless helped by an heiress—can never afford to live there again. Then I was with the delightful Boynes in the high Shropshire uplands, seeing in the most charming way many beautiful old houses. I saw two more from my next visit at Oxton in Notts—Wiverton, and Annesley where the Miss Chaworth Musters, beloved by Byron, once walked on the beautiful old terraces. Another echo from my long-ago came from my visit to Streatlam, where I so often was in my young days, and which is now inhabited by Lord Strathmore’s sister, Lady Frances Trevanion, and her pleasant cheery husband, both most kind cousins to me. The long galleries are filled with family portraits, including a great one of Mary Eleanor Bowes, whose strange story I have so often told. Lady Frances’s time is greatly taken up by the manners and morals of her dogs, the very smallest and noisiest I ever saw. They must be the sort of dogs Chaucer speaks of—
‘Of small houndes hadde she, that she fedde
With rosted flesh and milk, and wastel brede;
But sore wept she if one of hem were dead.’
“It was a short journey from Streatlam to Kiplin, the beautiful old house of Admiral Carpenter.... He told me how his grandfather had six sons, Talbots, and was fond of making them all lie down full length on the dining-room floor, joining one another, that he might see how many yards of sons he had! I saw Richmond from Kiplin: what a beautiful place, few abroad equal to it.