“I find this house, where no one is too clever, but every one is pleasant nevertheless, a great rest after Chevening, where I always felt struggling up to an intellectual level which I have no right to and which I cannot attain. Apropos, the last morning Lord Stanhope talked much of the origin of words, and said ‘Beldam’ came from ‘Belle dame’ used satirically.”
“August 15.—Returned to Holmhurst. Mr. Thomas, the landscape gardener, travelled with me. He spoke of an obnoxious American coming into a great hotel at Liverpool and boasting of how much finer American hotels were—‘a hundred times the size,’ &c. The man he addressed listened quietly and then said, ‘But you have not yet seen our great hotel at Southampton, sir; it is a mile long, will accommodate 5000 people, and all the waiters wait on horseback.’—‘I guess that’s a lie, sir,’ said the American. ‘Yes, it is,’ replied the Englishman, ‘but then I thought you were telling lies.’”
“Sept. 28.—A very pleasant visit of two days to the Shaw-Lefevres. They are certainly one of the happiest and most united of families. We made a delightful excursion of sixteen miles to Sutton Court, where they lived formerly. It must be very seldom that, after a lapse of ten years, a father and mother can return to such a place in old age with their family of the original seven unbroken, only many others added. Sutton, the beautiful old house of the Westons, inlaid with terra-cotta, is just the place for a story, with the closed wing where the ivy forces its way through the walls and wreaths round the frames of the old family portraits, which, rent and forlorn, flap in the gusts of wind whenever a distant door opens. Then there is the still-used Roman Catholic chapel, with its priest and its country congregation.”
“Powderham Castle, Oct. 4.—A week here has been most delightful. I had not felt certain how much I might like it, how much my dear friend of old days might be changed by lapse of time and new relations. I can only say that, if he is changed, it is in being more entirely and perfectly delightful than ever, more indescribably thoughtful for others, more filled with plans for the good of every one, and withal so simple, so free from cant, that all else seems unchristian and mundane by comparison. Lady Agnes is the one person I have seen who is quite entirely worthy of him, and it does seem as if a reward of such perfectly beautiful lives was given even in this life, that they should have been thrown together.
“I arrived about half-past five. Powderham has a low park, rising into high ground as it approaches the castle, which has a gateway and courtyard. Here Charlie was walking about amongst orange-trees in large boxes like those at the Tuileries. The bedrooms are dilapidated and falling into decay: Lord Devon will not restore them, nor will he set any of his estates free by selling the rest, but he goes on planting quantities of Wellingtonias in his park and making expensive fences round them. In himself he is charming, with a perfect and entirely courteous manner. Colonel and Mrs. Heygarth have been here, he still lame with shot in the leg from the battle of the Alma, where he was wounded again while lying on the ground, having been noticed because he tried to save Lord Chewton, who was lying near him, and whom a Russian soldier was about to murder.
“With Charlie and Lady Agnes I have been completely at home and perfectly happy. One day we went to the sands, and walked along them to Dawlish. But yesterday was quite charming; I had much wished to go to Lady Morley at Whiteway, and after luncheon we set off—Charlie, Lady Agnes, and I. When the narrow lanes grew too steep for the pony-carriage, we left it under a hedge, and putting a saddle on Jack the pony, rode and walked by turns up the hill and across the wild heath of the open moor: Charlie rode pick-a-back behind Lady Agnes. In the woods we met Morley, greatly surprised to see us arrive thus. The others were out, but Morley showed all the curiosities of the house, which were many in a small way. Just as we were setting off, Lady Morley and Lady Katherine returned, and, after many pro’s and con’s, we stayed to a most amusing dinner, and only set off again at 10 P.M. with lanthorns in pitch darkness. Morley and Lady Katherine walked with us the first three miles over the wild moor with their lanthorn, and then we dived down into the eerie lanes closely overhung with green and fringed with ferns, and most lovely were the effects as the lanthorn revealed one gleam of glistening foliage after another out of the darkness. When we reached home at 11 P.M., we found the servants alarmed and a horseman sent out to search for us; and no wonder.
“I was ill all night from having eaten junket at Whiteway. Charlie says this Devonshire dainty is so called from the Neapolitan joncetta—cream on rushes. In Devon they pretend it is a relic of the Roman invasion!